Book Review
Grade: B-
Perfect princesses exist only in fairy-tales. Humans wear tiaras, my darling. Humans who deserve love and forgiveness, just like everyone else
I guess I’ve been on a Royal Romance kick lately!! This sub-genre of romance can be seriously hit-or-miss for me. This book falls in the entertaining, but imperfect category.
Caroline eloped with a race car driver. She was exiled from her family and stripped of her royal title. When her husband died in a crash, she further separated herself from everything by hiding from the world. Caroline has a very complicated history with her family – and a lot of secrets. Including her job as a reporter and her previous role as a gossip columnist whose primary role was talking about her own family.
Hugh is a body guard with the royal police. He was Caroline’s bodyguard 10 years ago – until he asked to be reassigned. Caroline had developed feelings for Hugh and wanted to act on them. Hugh chose honor over love.
From what we are told, Caroline seems to have gone in to something of a downward spiral after that event. Hugh stayed the course as a bodyguard, building his skills and reputation. They are brought back together again when Caroline’s sister’s ex-fiance (who had reportedly killed himself) suddenly reappears in her life.
There is a LOT going on in this book. Like a lot. Royal intrigue plots, unrequited love, personal loss, action, adventure, the list goes on! I think a little judicious editing might have narrowed things down a bit. I also think that some things that happened in this story are designed to set the stage for the next stories in this series -rather than putting the focus on this book. I am a series junkie – but things like that tend to make the focal story a little unwieldy and scattered.
I also wanted a little more development of the relationship between Hugh and Caroline. Obviously their past history explains a lot of their present connection, but they don’t spend much time getting to know each other either. A point that is made by Caroline’s sister – but isn’t really fleshed out. I think there was so much else going on – that there wasn’t time for that.
The ending was totally and completely anticlimactic. Like totally. I actually still feel like -really – that’s it? I felt that way about everything that happened in the last 25% of the book. That being said, I did enjoy the story and was invested in what was going to happen. But I felt like there was so much going on that the story didn’t have a lot of focus. Without focus, I wasn’t able to develop a lot of depth of connection to the characters.
If you like royal romances – this is a great book for you. It will remind you of Emma Chase’s Royally Series. Or a very grown-up Princess Diaries. As a side note – the sexy-times in this book are definitely fade-to-black, so this might be a good transition book for a young-adult reader.
I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley – but these opinions are all my own!
Want to purchase this book for yourself? You can get it on Amazon.
This Book, That's Life 