Review: The Secrets of Mia Danvers by Robyn DeHart

I just have to say that I HAD to purchase this book!! I read an excerpt of it during her tour (which is still going on by the way) and I super had to read it.  So I purchased it and read it that very night (Thursday)! Although I didn’t finish it till the next night/morning at 6am (today, Saturday)!!! Got stuff to do on Friday so yup. Anyways~ Here we go!

The Secrets of Mia Danvers (Dangerous Liaisons #1)
by Robyn DeHart

Review:

So this is the first book in Robyn’s new series Dangerous Liaison! I’m telling you, I’m loving it so much that I’m going to email her about how great it is!

This is a mystery romance thriller-ish book base on the ever terrifying unsolved cases of the Jack the Ripper trope.

We have the hero, Alex Foster, Eighth Duke of Carrington who lives by the rules of society. An former army man and now the new Duke after his elder brother’s unfortunate and scandalous death, Alex is determined to not bring any scandal onto their name like many relatives before him. But that is quite difficult when you have a younger brother who’s always drunk, angry, rake-ish and trying hard to break away from the family. While preparing to propose to a lady, whom was promised and trained to be the Duchess to the next Duke of Carrington, Alex’s well ordered world came to a halt when the mad (and pretty) girl who lives on the edge of his property came knocking on his door.

The heroine, Mia Danvers, third and youngest daughter of a Viscount, and blind lives quietly and peacefully at the edge of Danbridge Hall. With her governess turned companion, Rachel, she lives quite happily sculpting sculptures and not having to live by the rules and proprieties called by the society.  That is until one night she encountered a gruesome murder and became a witness and target of Jack the Ripper. Not knowing who to turn to she asks the help of the Duke of Carrington to help her find the killer, as she is the only one to bring him to justice.

This story caught my attention right away from the first page. The prologue introduced you to Mia being escorted to the cabin in which she’ll live in for the Rest of her life (by her self!). At this point we got to see how she was treated by her mother and got to see how caring and loving Mia’s governess, Rachel is at disregarding Mia’s mother’s order to leave Mia alone in the cabin and decided to live there with her. How can any mother do that! But thankfully Rachel stood her ground and protected Mia from the harsh world.

As the first chapter came along I was thrown into a world of murder and mystery. I was super excited and in thrall at starting the book with a murder! I couldn’t get enough of it. From here we got to see hear what Mia witnessed and I sure was loving it. All mystery and not seeing who the killer is….. Fabulous!

Meeting Alex was fabulous too. He’s not really an Alpha male in my eyes, or at least how I saw him, but he is kind, caring, rational, agreeable, stubborn, and very protective. We got to see how he changed throughout the story and how he started to see and feel things differently after meeting and getting to know Mia. Seeing how she lived being blind but perfectly mobile and independent really intrigued him and taught him a lot about her. He also started seeing how society was at the fault for many things by making rules and judgments for and of people. But he most definitely likes the ideas and opinions of others in conversations. You got to Love that in a man! Swoon~

This is a line that I found fascinating (as in very agreeable) from Alex:

A path wound through the gardens, then darkened, allowing some reckless couples privacy for trysts. It was amusing to him that a society who claimed to truly be scandalized by people’s behavior seemed to do everything they could to create perfect scenarios for said behavior. And then the rest of them would stand around and discuss the carnage.
(Kindle Locations 2319-2322)

Mia is loveable. She’s caring, smart, independent, strong, opinionated, headstrong, stubborn, and determined. She has long thrown away proprieties. She’s not afraid to speak her mind and say what she know is right. She’s also not afraid to ask for what she wants and to hold back, especially when it came to her attraction and feeling towards Alex. She is also very independent and don’t like being pitied just because she is blind. I love her strength and power and how she held herself against those who thought little of her. I guess that says a lot about her character and personality.

The things that kind of bothered me was how openly they used each others’ Christian names. I found it really surprising that no one thought it strange or weird, and most definitely inappropriate of them to call on each other by their names and not titles. I especially thought that Alex’s mother would have said something or vexed or had a fit at them about it but yet she said nothing. She hated Mia and still she nothing! That really bothered me.

Another problem was Alex and his brother, Drew’s relationship.  There are so many misunderstanding that stood between them that I just couldn’t help but heave huge sighs and bulge my eyes out every time they talked and said nothing of what they thought (in their minds!). Yes, siblings have problems, everyone does but still, I felt like if some of the things were said their problems would have been solved much quicker. It would have changed to story a bit but still, I frowned and clench my teeth so much that I’m afraid one day they will all crack under the pressure.

But the story over all was fantastic! The plot and everything. The sisters were well written and their relationship with Mia (even though they we not well liked for what they did) was well executed. The relationship between Alex, Drew and their mother was also well formed and you can really feel the tension and unsteadiness of it. I love the back story of why Drew acts the way he does (So many secrets and surprises there).  The relationship between Mia and Alex was lovely. I love the tension there and how Alex tries to play the right cards but always find an secret way through it to sabotage his plan. The secondary love story for Rachel was fabulous! I was glad to get a short story in-between the larger one so that I won’t have to wait for a novella and it really helped the whole story wrap up at the end.

I definitely love the way Robyn pulled at my senses and brought on a whole bunch of tension to the story and mystery of who Jack the Ripper is and how they’re going to find him and what not. I find it fascinating that Robyn can play with it to make it seem real. But it brings up my question of: did she do research, by covering her eyes herself to see how it felt like?  She sure did a great job at it though.
This was a fabulous and very engaging story. I highly enjoyed it very much. It has a lot of action, mystery, sexual and thriller tension, love, forgiveness, and second chances.

I can not tell you how excited I am for the next book in the series, The Temptations of Anna Jacobs, starring Drew Foster!!!

This was bought as Kindle copy of the book.