This is my second book by Aven Ellis. I also read her, Sugar and Ice romance novel. Both are cute, and, either weirdly or expectedly share loves and didn’t loves.
In this story, Clementine meets a dude on IG. They hit it off and she learns he’s the imaginary version of Prince Harry. Will his being royalty ultimately drive a wedge in their love? I’m sure none of you can guess.
Anyway, some things I love…
- The story’s conflict does NOT come from finding out he’s royal. That happens early on. I appreciate the hidden identity didn’t build through the entire story because it would’ve been unrealistic and hard to read. I appreciate moving on to more real life conflicts when dating a royal… I say this like I have personal experience… spoiler: I don’t.
- The characters both have issues and call each other out on them. Not necessarily in a Hallmark, let’s only ever be friends kind of way, but via screaming matches like normal people. I like that, although romance novels are inherently unrealistic, this holds some validity in the real world.
- The shit the media pulls in the book seems legit like something that would/does happen. I would never want to be famous or famous adjacent for this reason.
Ok, some stuff I didn’t love…
- Christian’s (fictional Prince Harry) parents are incredibly one dimensional. One is good, the other is bad. No other characteristics exist for them. It moves the plot forward, but leaves the story a little flat.
- How we get the title is this super cute, flirty moment… until we repeat the snarky version of the same conversation almost verbatim with the mean parent. It felt like either an edit that was forgotten or a comment on how low my IQ must be to not get it the first go ’round.
- Their love is summed up as epic and never ending, etc at the end of every chapter. Then we’re supposed to believe conflict may rip them apart? Not only does it feel like the book kind of ends each chapter only to start back up on the next page, it makes it hard to be swept up in any drama.
So… where did I land? I overall enjoyed the book. The “loving into a royal family is hard” is a fresh take on the prince trope, so I appreciate that, but you really need to leave your analytical brain out of it or you get frustrated.
Reading Minds 