Rating: 3 stars
Official book description:
Makeda Hicks has lost her job and her girlfriend in one fell swoop. The last thing she’s in the mood for is to rehash the story of her grandmother’s infamous summer fling with a runaway prince from Ibarania, or the investigator from the World Federation of Monarchies tasked with searching for Ibarania’s missing heir.
Yet when Beznaria Chetchevaliere crashes into her life, the sleek and sexy investigator exudes exactly the kind of chaos that organized and efficient Makeda finds irresistible, even if Bez is determined to drag her into a world of royal duty Makeda wants nothing to do with.
When a threat to her grandmother’s livelihood pushes Makeda to agree to return to Ibarania, Bez takes her on a transatlantic adventure with a crew of lovable weirdos, a fake marriage, and one-bed hijinks on the high seas. When they finally make it to Ibarania, they realize there’s more at stake than just cash and crown, and Makeda must learn what it means to fight for what she desires and not what she feels bound to by duty.
Alyssa Cole's contemporary romances keep being lauded on romance review sites I frequent, and I keep reading her books, waiting to be as impressed as others seem to be. We first met Beznaria "Bez" Chetchevaliere in a cameo in the first book in this series, How to Catch a Queen. Turns out I possibly prefer her in smaller doses, she's a bit much as a protagonist in her own book. I can see why Makeda is rather taken aback by her.
Frequently one of my complaints of Cole's contemporary romances is that the heroines are way more impressive than the heroes and I just don't think they've found a person who's good enough for them. In this story, where we have two heroines, I'm still not entirely sold on them as a couple. I think I liked them fine as individuals and people interacting, but kept waiting for the romance to work for me - which it never really did.
Additionally, there is the whole missing "long lost heir" storyline that played out in an albeit surprising manner, certainly not at all the way I was expecting it to, but that once again felt a bit too outlandish to me. The things I liked best about this book were Makeda's grandmother, said grandmother's mean old cat and the dude we are introduced to who is yet another royal (SO many of them out there in Cole's romance world) out and about in a secret identity. He seemed interesting, so I guess I'll probably pick up the next book in this series as well. With the exception of her historical romances, Ms. Cole is now very much a "pick up on sale" or whenever I can find one available at the library. There's always enough entertainment value in each book that I don't entirely regret spending the time reading them, though. Not exactly the strongest recommendation, but there we are.
Judging a book by its cover: As always, Ms. Cole has really beautiful covers, featuring beautiful people in interesting outfits. I still think the model who portrays Bez should have been more muscular (her arms are basically matchsticks, which feels very wrong) and her shoulders should have been wider, but otherwise, I guess it's fine. It's always nice to see two ladies in a clinch cover instead of the standard hetero couple.
Crossposted on Cannonball Read.
No comments:
Post a Comment