✨R E V I E W✨

A fun romance! I love the setting, which takes place in a Scottish castle.

Riley is a cursebreaker, a skill that’s been passed down in her family for generations. Clark is a no-nonsense archeologist. Both of them are working in this castle, and as badly as Clark wants to deny the existance of any magical happenings, weird things just keep occuring.

This book was silly and I felt like it didn’t take itself too seriously, which I liked. I’d pick it up if you’re looking for something fun and a little different than most other contemporary romances!

I really thought I would love this book more. Cursebreaker works with uptight Scottish archeologist in a haunted castle? The premise alone sounds amazing. Unfortunately, the book itself didn't quite hit the mark. Both characters seemed very immature for their age and I did not feel any chemistry between whatsoever. If it wasn't a romance book, I could see past that but because this IS a romance book, the fact that I found their chemistry lacking and their overall romance pretty insta-lovey killed my enjoyment.

While I am sliiiightly annoyed that Rosie Danan made me wait 2 and a half years for a new book release (it is really difficult to top her previous books, The Roommate and The Intimacy Experiment, Do Your Worst definitely lives up to the expectations. A slight detour to Danan's previous releases, Do Your Worst has some hints of paranormal elements mixed in with contemporary that make it scream fun for the fall season. Riley and Clark have such a fun enemies to lovers storyline, and I really enjoyed their blossoming romance when they're literally forced to work together in this cursed castle. Amazing job by Rosie Danan and I cannot wait to to tell everyone how much I enjoyed this book!

Do Your Worst is Rosie Danan at her sparkling best. Ancient curses, American expats, mysticism versus reality – this book has it all, and it wraps it up in a spirited, fun-loving package. A couple of things kept this bubbling under a flat-out A for me, but it’s still a great read and a definite DIK.

Riley Rhodes is on a mission. She’s trying to make a name for herself in the supernatural marketplace as a spellbreaker, having come from a long line of American mystics. Riley is hired to go to a tiny Scottish village called Torridon to break a long-held curse on Arden Castle. The curse is of unknown origin, and she’s trying to figure out how to lift it.

Clark Edgeware is an archeologist whose larger-than-life father, Archie, is known for his showboating. Archie has become the fictionalized subject of a big screen movie, and Clark isn’t wild about this--he's already sick o dwelling in his dad’s shadow. When Clark is given the opportunity to do a minor excavation of Arden Castle so the property can be redeveloped by a new buyer, he jumps at the chance. Clark absolutely doesn’t believe in magic or ghosts, so an enchanting first meeting ends poorly when he finds out why Riley is in town.

Clark and Riley immediately clash over their methodology, with Clark concentrating on what’s in front of him when it comes to possibly salvageable artifacts, and Riley trying to figure out how and why the castle was cursed in the first place and how to free the land. Banter ensues, but can love be far behind?

Not in a Danan novel, and you know you’re gonna have plenty of opposites-attract fire added into the mix along the way. Do Your Worst is funny, fast-paced and well-written, and everything you want in a contemporary romance.

Each of our protagonists is trying to prove themselves as a person in their own right rather than an adjunct to the family line. The chemistry between them is generally aces, and there’s plenty of push-and-pull heat to keep the reader turning pages.

The Scottish setting is fun and well-used. But Do Your Worst does have a couple of flaws. The book could’ve used more flashbacks to explain what was really happening in the castle, and sometimes the banter between Riley and Clark skews a little mean. But overall, everything works beautifully. This is a romantic feast of a novel.

What an imaginative story. When Clark and Riley meet it seems so unlikely they'll ever get along. He absolutely does not believe in her talent. He doesn't respect her. She thinks he's a pompous ass. And he is. As they work and live around each other, they find an attraction.

A sweet love story starts to flourish while Riley tries to break the curse on the castle and Clark tries to determine if there's anything historically significant. As they go about this, the mysticism of Ireland's fay becomes harder to deny. The couple's love isn't quick or easy but it's totally worth it.

I enjoyed the couple, the story, the setting, the other characters, everything. A fun read.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

3.75
I really enjoyed this concept. I loved the idea of falling in love to break a curse and the Scotland setting. Riley and Clark were a great pairing and I loved the verbal sparring they went through at first. Their sexual chemistry was intense and immediate even when they were fighting and I always love stories like that. The beginning was a bit jumbled for me and the end felt a bit rushed. Overall, there just felt like there was something missing. The spice and humor was great which I expected from Rosie Danan, but the romantic feelings felt lackluster. This wasn't my favorite of Danan's after absolutely loving and devouring her other books, but I still enjoyed the paranormal vibe of this one. Thank you to Berkley for the ARC to read and review.

I enjoyed this but I think there was just something missing for me? And I hate saying that because I don’t know what the something is which sounds stupid. I liked Riley and Clark fine and the archaeology/curse breaking aspect was fun and it was sexy ah but the romance felt like it was lacking romance. It felt like it was like completely sexual, which is fine! But then they were in love five days later. Also there was a lot of monologuing and inner thoughts.

This was fun. Nothing revolutionary, even in the terms of romance novels. I liked the characters, and the plot was interesting.

It was an enjoyable read. I enjoyed the dynamic and bickering between Riley and Clark, and the heat was decent.

"Do Your Worst" is a cute romance perfect for fall. With a curse, a castle in Scotland, and a hot English man, what more could you ask for??

Riley and Clark hit it off one night in a pub before quickly finding out that they are both working at the same site, and Clark has some opinions about Riley’s presence there. Cue tension: he doesn’t believe that curses are real and she is determined to prove him wrong.

Although I wouldn’t classify Riley and Clark as enemies, they are definitely rivals. Whether they were begrudgingly working together or doing their best to get on each other’s nerves, it was so fun to read. And the spice just made it even better.

I found the mystery aspect pretty predictable, but I wasn’t really looking to be shocked and I still enjoyed the characters and their journey.

*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Paranormal romance for spooky season 🏰❤️👻

An English archaeologist and an Appalachian curse-breaker hit it off in a Scottish bar, and this part’s great. Until the archaeologist discovers the curse-breaker’s profession — and that she was hired to work at the same Highlands castle, no less.

At this point we move into the “enemies” phase and things sometimes get ridiculous. I’m happy to suspend my disbelief for 300-year-old curses, but Riley’s breaking into Clark’s camper was eye-rollingly over the top.

There’s no third act breakup, minimal angst, and only one annoying side character — all romance pet peeves of mine. Overall, an enjoyable read, and I hope Danan continues writing in this romance subgenre.

Well, this was magical. It feels like a 90's romcom in the very best of ways: Indulgent, sassy, and unputdownable. Will definitely be watching for more from Danan!

With a balanced mixture of mysticisms, romance, mystery, and a good enemies to lovers, it was the perfect Fall/Spooky Season read!

This was my first Rosie Danan book, and I was eager to get this one after hearing great reviews of her other titles. I was honestly surprised with how unique this romcom felt to what I’ve picked up lately. First off, our main characters are a Curse Breaker and an Archeologist which are two professions I haven’t gotten to read.

There was also a dash of spice (and dare I say some added kink), and the banter had me laughing. Plus, it did not have a third act breakup and that alone made this book worth it. There was enough conflict, character development, and emotional impact without having to use that trope.

The only thing I wished was that there was a tad more tension and chemistry between the two main characters since it felt like the transition from enemies to lovers was quick.

Both of the Rosie Danan's I've read have been very good romances, and so while I might not have loved this the way I loved The Intimacy Experiment, this is definitely a good time. It also delivered the fall vibes I wanted from it when I held off on reading it until the fall months.

Here we are following Riley, a curse breaker from New Jersey as she's in Scotland to break a curse on a castle so developers can move forward with their plans. It's here that she meets Clark, an archaeologist there to ensure that the developers don't destroy anything. He's also licking his wounds from a previous project that would have made him an even bigger laughingstock of the archaeologist if his father wasn't archaeology royalty. Or that's what I took from the exchange.

Overall I think that this book did a fun job at throwing Riley and Clark together. I like their dynamic, it was fun and light and entertaining to read about. It's also the true strangers to lovers that I am always in favor of. Sure they're technically employed at the same location, and I guess you could call it workplace romance if you wanted to reach, but they didn't know each other and they had to come together to break the curse that Clark doesn't really believe in. I also thought that it incorporated the paranormal/supernatural/spiritual element of Riley being a curse breaker without ever feeling like it was going to veer into full-on fantasy romance territory. It felt like it made sense to be grounded in a contemporary setting.

The only con that I really had is I wish Riley could have had something going on outside the romance too. Clark has a whole family situation that is slowly parceled out through his section, and the way it relates back to the romance and the reason as to why he's at the castle in the first place is all very well and good, but it leaves Riley with nothing to do outside of Clark and the work they're doing together. It's not the biggest problem in the world. In some ways the story does mirror some of that back at her with the storyline with her mother, but it's not as prominent and it's not quite the same.

Overall I had a fun time with this, the smut was excellent, and while I do not believe that Clark and Riley are a couple that would last the test of time sometimes that's not as important as the fun we had getting to see them at this point in their shared journey.

Hmmm..... I'm a Danan Stan and will back her work for eternity. However, this read isn't nearly as captivating as her previous works.

I enjoyed this quite a bit for sure, but it's radically different than her other publications.

I loved Clark and the craze that was Riley. They were something fierce together. We still get some amazing steam in our Danan era.

I would rank this at the bottom of her works however.

Thank you to the publisher for the advanced ecopy

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

Rosie Danan is a master at writing erotic romance and in this book, she did not disappoint.

Do Your Worst is about Riley, a curse breaker who’s been trained on the occult from a young age, who gets hired to break a hundreds year curse on a Scottish castle. The only thing in her way is Clark, an unbelieving archeologist working onsite to save his reputation. When the 2 are thrown to work together, they realize they are enemies. But, the curse seems to want them to be the opposite in order to fix everything. So, they must go from enemies to… not.

There was a good blend in the book of romance and an actual backstory for this curse. I expected to only read smut, but the history of Arden Castle was a pleasant plotline.

I did feel the characters went from one extreme to the next in regards to their relationship with each other, but it wasn’t a bad thing. I wished there were more exciting scenes as everything seemed to happen as I predicted it would. Not a particularly standout romance, but it served its purpose in the smut department and I can see readers who want that enjoying the book. Especially for fall/spooky season!

This book was a cutie-patootie. I really enjoyed the concept of the curse and all the hard work it put in to push the people in its castle together.

Riley is a curse breaker, as her grandmother was before her. Her job is to get rid of the awful curses that get placed on placed or people, either purposely or accidentally, and bring relief to those who were cursed. She travels from New Jersey to Scotland, to break a three-centuries-old course on Arden Castle. Clark, the archeologist in charge of preserving the site, thinks she's full of crap. Curse related madness and romance ensues.

I enjoyed this a lot. This was the first I've read of Rosie Danan's work, but I throughly enjoyed it. She built a lot of fun magical elements into the story that didn't feel out of place or glaringly "magic for the sake of magic," like some magical realism books do on occasion. I love the setting in the Scottish Highlands and the background characters, when they come into play, are well-developed and fun additions.

I love that Riley is confident in herself, though she has her moments of self-doubt too. Clark has his own demons that need to be dealt with, but he's not a "broken man" like so many romance writers love to try to rehabilitate in their novels. The romance here is good, and the intimate scenes are steamy and even borderline BDSM, which is different. It's a fun enemies to lovers storyline, and even the stuck in a trope situations felt organic and not forced into being just to make sure there's a "we're stuck together" situation.

I received an Advanced Reader Copy via NetGalley in return for sharing my thoughts on this book. Thanks to the author and publisher for this opportunity!

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for this arc in exchange for an honest review!

4.5 stars

This was a really fun read and perfect for the fall. I thought this was a good representation of enemies to lovers, and I liked the development of their relationship. I thought Clark's transition from thinking she's a scammer to somewhat believing her was a little abrupt, but I liked everything that came after that.

I enjoyed both character's inner dialogue. They were both funny in their own ways, and Riley was very entertaining, though she was temporarily quite a savage to poor Clark. And of course their banter when they were getting along was great.

I also enjoyed the back story of the curse they were trying to break and was a little disappointed that we really didn't get closure on that. Did they both just die there? Were they able to sneak out and live happily ever after?

Would recommend for any romance readers, and I kind of hope Rosie writes something else in these series!

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC of "Do Your Worst" which is a fun, very spicy, enemies-to-lovers, contemporary romance set in the ruins of a Scottish castle in the Highlands. Riley comes from a long line of women who understand how to break curses that have been placed upon people, land, places, etc. As she tries to build her curse breaking business, she takes a job in Scotland to break a 300 year old curse on a castle currently in ruins. When she arrives, she meets Clark, son of a famous archeologist trying to win his father's approval back after getting mixed up in some bad business.

Being a man of science, Clark immediately finds Riley's curse breaking a huge joke, if not outright fraudulent. But the more they try to push each other away, the stronger their attraction to each other and, interestingly enough, the more the curse seems to want them together.

Clark and Riley get into some VERY steamy situations and, while I enjoyed most of it, one initial phrase really turned me off. Clark said Riley had porn star lips which made me cringe. But I'm glad I moved past it because the book ended up being a lot of fun with some wonderful, positive self care and self importance messages. Also, there's a library of ancient books where the couple have some major breakthroughs. Who doesn't love a story with an ancient library? And, yes, we kinda knew where this was headed from early on, even if Riley hadn't figured it out, but it was still a lot of fun to take this journey with them.

I knew Rosie Danan wouldn’t let me down and I was still blown away by this book. Riley and Clark had the kind of chemistry that you could feel radiating off the page and I just could not put this book down. I’m a sucker for a good old enemies to lovers plot and this one nailed every bit of the trope and then some. Also, sequel following Patrick and Ceilidh when?? I feel so lucky to have gotten this ARC and can’t wait for everyone to discover this absolute gem when it hits shelves.