Rating: ★★★★ | 354 pages | Avon | Contemporary / Royalty | 2/27/2018
A Princess In Theory is a humorous and delightful kick-off to Alyssa Cole’s Reluctant Royals series. Naledi Smith has a ton to juggle between grad school, lab work and waitressing–the last thing she needs is to get caught up with Jamal, the cute guy at work who just happens to be her new neighbor.
… except Jamal isn’t who he say he is, he is actually Prince Thabsio, the crown prince of Thesolo who has gone undercover to meet the girl he was bethored to as a child. Thabsio gets more than he bargained for with Naledi — but can he tell her who he really is before it’s too late ?
In a lot of ways, this book was exactly what I thought it would be, but I wasn’t expecting this book to be so funny ! A lot of the initial humor comes from Thabiso’s early interactions with Ledi. It’s this comedy of manners as he tries to be blend in as a regular American guy. It hits all the moments you want to see in a romance like this and is filled with memorable side characters.
I also like that Alyssa Cole threw in cute little expys for real life things like there is a food delivery service called “Yellow Spoon” and “Instaphoto” is a popular social media platform. I gather these are going to keep showing up in the wold of these books. I’m also pretty sure Regina’s , Ledi’s best friend’s sister, website GirlWithGlasses is an expy of BlackGirlNerds ! I hope Regina gets to be the heroine of a book.
As you can imagine when you have a hero lying to a heroine you want a good grovel, and don’t worry we get a pretty good one here.Look, I’m going to be honest, the book didn’t completely land the ending. There was an intrigue plot that popped up and was really easy to figure out. I really just wanted was more of the cute Brooklyn love story from the first half of the book.
So, if you’re looking for a book that features STEM, African Royalty and female characters who are crushin’ it–and you’ve already seen Black Panther five times–A Princess, In Theory, is everything you want, and that is a fact!
*ARC received for review
