Between grad school and multiple jobs, Naledi Smith doesn’t have time for fairy tales…or patience for the constant e-mails claiming she’s betrothed to an African prince. Sure. Right. Delete! As a former foster kid, she’s learned that the only things she can depend on are herself and the scientific method, and a silly e-mail won’t convince her otherwise.
Prince Thabiso is the sole heir to the throne of Thesolo, shouldering the hopes of his parents and his people. At the top of their list? His marriage. Ever dutiful, he tracks down his missing betrothed. When Naledi mistakes the prince for a pauper, Thabiso can’t resist the chance to experience life—and love—without the burden of his crown.
The chemistry between them is instant and irresistible, and flirty friendship quickly evolves into passionate nights. But when the truth is revealed, can a princess in theory become a princess ever after?
I don’t generally read contemporary romance but people have been raving about this book. I’ve also liked Alyssa Cole’s historical romances so I decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did.
I laughed out loud to see that this story starts with a variation on the Nigerian Prince email scam. Naledi receives an email claiming that she may be the long lost betrothed of a prince of an African country. Now if she’s only send all the necessary information to establish her identity…..
There are many places where this book could have easily gone from entertaining to annoying. The author did a great job with keeping the mystery/suspense up but allowing pieces of the puzzle to be revealed in a natural way instead of dragging out conflicts.
There is a lot going on in this book.
There is the Prince and the Pauper aspect as Thabiso tries to live as a normal person for a week. He gains insights on how he’s been treating all the “little people” in his life.
Naledi is having to deal with white male colleagues who use her for grunt work in their lab. Any time she speaks up for herself she is afraid of being labeled a “difficult black woman.” I like the way another woman in the department was eventually able to stand up for her.
Naledi has a rich friend who overruns any boundaries Naledi tries to set up but who she knows cares about her.
Then there are the mysteries of why her parents ran away from Africa with her and what is the new illness that appearing in Thabiso’s country.
That’s all without adding in the romance aspect.
I’d recommend this book for anyone who likes romance books. It is the start of a series. Somewhere in this series I want a book about what happened with Thabiso’s assistant. She travels with him to the U.S., starts a whirlwind romance with a woman she meets on Tinder, has some sort of bad break up that she refuses to talk about, and then heads back to Africa with Thabiso and Naledi. There’s way more to that story than the teasing bit we saw in this book.
Jay na Thalang is a demanding, driven genius. He doesn’t know how to stop or even slow down. The instant he lays eyes on Maria Lopez, he knows that she is a sexy distraction he can’t afford. He’s done his best to keep her at arm’s length, and he’s succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
Maria has always been cautious. Now that her once-tiny, apocalypse-centered blog is hitting the mainstream, she’s even more careful about preserving her online anonymity. She hasn’t sent so much as a picture to the commenter she’s interacted with for eighteen months—not even after emails, hour-long chats, and a friendship that is slowly turning into more. Maybe one day, they’ll meet and see what happens.
But unbeknownst to them both, Jay is Maria’s commenter. They’ve already met. They already hate each other. And two determined enemies are about to discover that they’ve been secretly falling in love…
I’m a big fan of Courtney Milan’s historical romances. I wanted to read another one of her books for AsianLitBingo but they don’t qualify because they don’t have Asian main characters. I decided to try one of her contemporary romances. Most contemporary romances don’t work for me. I like romances PG-13 or less and you don’t generally get that in a contemporary.
I chose this book instead of the first book in the series. The first book is about a billionaire. That’s one of my key NOPE words in descriptions. I don’t want to read about billionaires in romances. This one is billionaire-free although the said billionaire is lurking around as a secondary character.
Jay is:
a professor at a university in California
Thai/Chinese
bisexual
a frequent commenter on a website who moved to being an online friend of the creator of the website
Maria is:
an older undergrad at the same university
Latina
trans
a self-proclaimed girly-girl
the creator of a blog that examines end-of-the-world scenarios
the sister of one of Jay’s friends
Jay takes an immediate dislike to Maria when they meet in person through her brother because he perceives her to be overly interested in shoes and makeup and girl stuff. He finds her shallow. He can’t even seem to make a connection between a woman he sees in front of him and the woman he has been flirting with through science and mathematics for two years. They aren’t even the same species in his mind.
I’m not a big fan of books that are all about mistaken identity. This book ends the mystery about halfway through. The rest of the book is about them trying to translate a two year online relationship into real life. Maria has some major abandonment issues that cause her to be very fearful of committing to a relationship. Jay needs to deal with his dismissals of women who appear very feminine. He considers himself to be a feminist but still thinks women in dresses and makeup must be dumb.
I thought these issues were handled well in the story. There was a lot going on. The author writes flirting very well. I wasn’t completely swept away with the romance here. I think that is more an issue of not being a huge fan of contemporaries instead of being completely the fault of the book. If you like contemporary romances that deal with issues and aren’t purely fluff, I’d recommend this one.
So well then after I read this one I had to go back and read another one of her historical romances, didn’t I? This one happened to be all about mathematical flirting too.
Nobody knows who Miss Rose Sweetly is, and she prefers it that way. She’s a shy, mathematically-minded shopkeeper’s daughter who dreams of the stars. Women like her only ever come to attention through scandal. She’ll take obscurity, thank you very much.
All of England knows who Stephen Shaughnessy is. He’s an infamous advice columnist and a known rake. When he moves into the house next door to Rose, she discovers that he’s also wickedly funny, devilishly flirtatious, and heart-stoppingly handsome. But when he takes an interest in her mathematical work, she realizes that Mr. Shaughnessy isn’t just a scandal waiting to happen. He’s waiting to happen to her…and if she’s not careful, she’ll give in to certain ruination.
This is a rare historical romance novella set in England that acknowledges that England at that time was not uniformly white. Rose is black. She is staying with her pregnant sister who is about to have her baby while her Naval Officer husband is at sea. They are dealing with the horrible racism of the doctor who is supposed to be helping. At the same time, a once in a lifetime astronomical event is about to take place. Because Rose is just a woman who does the calculation in the lab, she isn’t going to be allowed into the prime viewing space to watch it.
When she finds out that she has a suitor who is white, she is unimpressed by his assertions that everything will work out just fine. She knows that he has no idea of the prejudice that they will face as an interracial couple.
This is part of the Brothers Sinister series but it can be read alone. There is great dialogue between the characters. I like these stories because they feature women who know their worth (and it is based on something other than their money or their looks) and men who are actually nice and worth caring about.
About Courtney Milan
“C ourtney Milan’s debut novel was published in 2010. Since then, her books have received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist. She’s been a New York Times and a USA Today Bestseller, a RITA® finalist and an RT Reviewer’s Choice nominee for Best First Historical Romance. Her second book was chosen as a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010.
Courtney lives in the Rocky Mountains with her husband, a marginally-trained dog, and an attack cat.
Before she started writing historical romance, Courtney got a graduate degree in theoretical physical chemistry from UC Berkeley. After that, just to shake things up, she went to law school at the University of Michigan and graduated summa cum laude. Then she did a handful of clerkships with some really important people who are way too dignified to be named here. She was a law professor for a while. She now writes full-time.” from her website
“Richard, Marquess of Devon is satisfied with his ton marriage. His wife of five months, Lady Eugenia Devon, thought she was, too, until she found the book. Their marriage is one of respect and affection, with no messy entanglements such as love. Devon’s upbringing impressed upon him that gentlemen slake their baser needs on a mistress, not their gently bred wives. However, once married, he was no longer comfortable bedding a woman other Eugenia. When she stumbles onto a naughty book, she begins a campaign to change the rules.”
This book started with an interesting twist. Instead of being all about the courtship like most Regency romances, this story starts after the couple has been married for five months. Eugenia hears the news that her husband’s mistress has died in an accident and decides to take this opportunity to convince him to not find another one. At the same time she comes across a sex manual in a book store. (Let’s just set aside the unlikeliness of a sex manual in a Regency bookstore in a place where a lady could come across it, ok?)
Up until now their physical relationship has consisted of scheduled three nights a week sex mostly clothed in the dark in order to produce an heir. She was told by her mother that she should just lie still and think about redecorating and it would be over soon. He was told that you do you duty with your wife and keep a mistress on the side for any of your desires other than procreation. All this advice has resulted in some people with some very mixed up ideas and hang ups about sex.
Eugenia’s attempt to spice up their marriage does not go well. Her husband is horrified. He starts to avoid her. No more scheduled times. Now she has to try to seduce him to get him back. He is convinced that she has taken a lover because of her new found knowledge. It is all an object lesson about why people should talk to each other when they are married instead of making assumptions.
I did enjoy this twist on a historical romance. This book would be good for Regency fans who don’t mind a little bit of explicit sexual talk and activity.
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for a review.
“Hugo Marshall earned the nickname “the Wolf of Clermont” for his ruthless ambition–a characteristic that has served him well, elevating the coal miner’s son to the right hand man of a duke. When he’s ordered to get rid of a pestering governess by fair means or foul, it’s just another day at work.
But after everything Miss Serena Barton has been through at the hands of his employer, she is determined to make him pay. She won’t let anyone stop her–not even the man that all of London fears. They might call Hugo Marshall the Wolf of Clermont, but even wolves can be brought to heel…”
I’m a huge fan of Courtney Milan’s novels. I love Regency Romances and hers are exceptional. They are smart and funny. I can even handle the sex because the descriptions aren’t cringe-inducing. While I was reading this I noticed that I was smiling, which is about the best recommendation I think I can give a book.
This novella is a prequel to her Brothers Sinister series. You don’t have to read this series in order. Each book stands on its own. Characters from other books may show up as secondary characters in the next book but you don’t need to have read the previous one to understand what is going on.
This story is currently free for Kindle (on the day this review is published) if you want to try out her writing. Fair warning though you might get hooked and need to read the rest of the series.
About Courtney Milan
“C ourtney Milan’s debut novel was published in 2010. Since then, her books have received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist. She’s been a New York Times and a USA Today Bestseller, a RITA® finalist and an RT Reviewer’s Choice nominee for Best First Historical Romance. Her second book was chosen as a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010.
Courtney lives in the Rocky Mountains with her husband, a marginally-trained dog, and an attack cat.
Before she started writing historical romance, Courtney got a graduate degree in theoretical physical chemistry from UC Berkeley. After that, just to shake things up, she went to law school at the University of Michigan and graduated summa cum laude. Then she did a handful of clerkships with some really important people who are way too dignified to be named here. She was a law professor for a while. She now writes full-time.” from her website
An idealistic suffragette... Miss Frederica "Free" Marshall has put her heart and soul into her newspaper, known for its outspoken support of women's rights. Naturally, her enemies are intent on destroying her business and silencing her for good. Free refuses to be at the end of her rope...but she needs more rope, and she needs it now. ...a jaded scoundrel... Edward Clark's aristocratic family abandoned him to die in a war-torn land, so he survived the only way he could: by becoming a rogue and a first-class forger. When the same family that left him for dead vows to ruin Miss Marshall, he offers his help. So what if he has to lie to her? She's only a pawn to use in his revenge. ...and a scandal seven years in the making.
I haven’t read much romance lately. I do like a good historical English romance though as evidenced by my recent trip to Bath just to see the Austen stuff. I was going to read a Regency romance while I was there but didn’t get to it. Soon after getting home though I came across this book on a list of feminist romances.
Feminist romance, really? I thought the whole point of romance books was to find someone to take care of you. It seems that way in historicals. No matter how capable the woman is she gladly gives it all up for the man who saves her.
Then I read this.
Yes! She followed that up with this fine speech.
“You should read more of my newspaper. I published an excellent essay by Josephine Butler on this very subject. Men use sexuality as a tool to shut up women. We are not allowed to speak on matters that touch on sexual intercourse — even if they concern our own bodies and our own freedom — for fear of being labeled indelicate. Any time a man wishes to scare a woman into submission, he need only add the question of sexual attraction, leaving the virtuous woman with no choice but to blush and fall silent. You should know, Mr. Clark, that I don’t intend to fall silent. I have already been labeled indelicate; there is nothing you can add to that chorus.”
The book is a bit more, shall we say – descriptive?, than I’m used to from reading my grandmother’s uber-clean romance books. In her books people get married and then they may kiss and then magically babies appear. In this book they got married halfway through the book and then they explained in detail how babies are made to appear. I’ve said before how I feel about that.
Overall I liked the book. It was a nice change from the traditional formulaic period romances that I’ve read before.
About Courtney Milan
“C ourtney Milan’s debut novel was published in 2010. Since then, her books have received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist. She’s been a New York Times and a USA Today Bestseller, a RITA® finalist and an RT Reviewer’s Choice nominee for Best First Historical Romance. Her second book was chosen as a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010.
Courtney lives in the Rocky Mountains with her husband, a marginally-trained dog, and an attack cat.
Before she started writing historical romance, Courtney got a graduate degree in theoretical physical chemistry from UC Berkeley. After that, just to shake things up, she went to law school at the University of Michigan and graduated summa cum laude. Then she did a handful of clerkships with some really important people who are way too dignified to be named here. She was a law professor for a while. She now writes full-time.” from her website
A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole 
