Review: Charmed and Dangerous by Toni McGee Causey

Genres: Romantic Suspense

Casee‘s review of Charmed and Dangerous (The Bobbie Faye Series, Book 1) by Toni McGee Causey.

Bobbie Faye is looking forward to the Lake Charles Contraband Days Festival with balloons, booze and babies in pirate costumes. Instead, her trailer’s flooded, her no-good brother’s been kidnapped, and the criminals are demanding her mom’s tiara as ransom.

Soon Bobbie Faye is committing (unintentional) bank robbery and (fully intentional) carjacking to retrieve her family heirloom. Along comes the hard-muscled, impossibly sexy Trevor, the guy whose truck she just took hostage. Luckily, Bobbie Faye knows how to outsmart angry bears, drive a speedboat, and handle a gun. As for handling Trevor? No gun-shyness there. Now, if only that pesky state police detective, who also happens to be a pissed-off ex-boyfriend, would stay out of her way…

I read the back cover of this book at Borders, checked to make sure it wasn’t in first person and decided to try it out. I’m not a Janet Evanovich fan (it’s mostly b/c I can’t stand love triangles), but the potential romantic comedy of this series appealed to me. Still, I wasn’t sure what I would think of a heroine named Bobbie Faye.

Charmed and Dangerous was a roller-coaster ride that started on page one and didn’t stop until the end. Just thinking about living Bobbie Faye’s life srsly gives me a headache. The poor woman can not catch a break. The morning she wakes up to her trailer flooding, all she wanted to do was make a good impression on the social worker that can take away her niece. What she ends up doing should surprise her, but she has ceased to be surprised at the crazy turns her life can make.

If there is one think that Bobbie Faye takes seriously, it is family. After her boyfriend arrested her sister (even rightfully so), she left him without hesitation. There is something to be said for loyalty after all. So when her brother is kidnapped, she doesn’t hesitate to retrieve a family heirloom in exchange for his life.

One of the things I loved so much about this book was no matter what Bobbie Faye did, the citizens of Lake Charles, Louisiana are fiercely protective of her. So while they don’t mind giving her a hard time within the town, they will never turn on the Contraband Day Queen.

When Bobbie Faye goes to the bank to get the handmade (and monetarily worthless) tiara, what ensues is almost even too much for Bobbie Faye. When the bank is robbed as she’s leaving it, the tiara is taken. Bobbie Fay is thus forced to take a man hostage so she can follow the robbers. She’s reluctantly drawn to her strangely compliant hostage, then figures it’s just her luck that she would be attracted to him.

Toni has started what promises to be a hilariously funny yet romantic series. There was not one page that was from Trevor’s POV, but the book was so well written that there was no question of what he thought. He’s the calm of the storm that is Bobbie Faye. And while he may be her perfect match, there is also Bobbie Faye’s ex. The cop that happens to be after her for robbing a bank.

If something has gone wrong in Cam’s life, the reason is usually Bobbie Faye. He still hasn’t gotten over the fact that she left him for doing his job. The relationship between Cam and Bobbie Faye is complex. Cam is determined that she won’t suck him into the craziness of her life. Bobbie Faye thinks he never loved her and has no idea how wrong she is.

So while there seems to be no apparent love triangle, the subtle yet intense relationship between Bobbie Faye and Cam definitely exists. It’s that along with the hilarity of that which is Bobbie Faye that makes this book as good as it is. I know I didn’t expect to like it nearly as much as I did.

4.25 out of 5.

This book is available from St. Martin’s Press. You can buy it here.

Other books in the series:

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