Wickedly Powerful

Despite fires blazing all around, the romance is only tepid in the third Baba Yaga contemporary paranormal (after Wickedly Wonderful). Bella Young helps fight fires with her power. She lives in a magical caravan with her sarcastic dragon-cat, Koschka, and eschews human contact; when she was a novice Baba Yaga, she badly burned someone, and she doesn’t trust herself. Currently encamped in the Black Hills, she crosses paths with fire lookout Sam Corbett, a former firefighter suffering from PTSD. Burned inside and out and living spartanly, he avoids other people so he won’t have to deal with their reactions to his scars, but Bella only sees the brave man who bears them. Poor pacing slows down the romance’s development, and a former Baba Yaga’s absurd plan to become invincible sucks up much of the available oxygen. The humorous, caring interactions among Bella, Koshka, and Jazz, a teenage foster care runaway whom Bella mentors, nearly make up for romantic heat that never rises above a simmer. Agent: Elaine Spencer, Knight Agency. (Feb.)