Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for sending me an ARC of this book!

3.5 stars.

I really hate that this book is compared so much already to Red, White, and Royal Blue because I feel like it's going to be criticized way harsher for that comparison. It was a super fun read, but I just know it's going to get way more criticism because of this comparison.

Carter Odgen is an event planner living in New Jersey. Frankly, he's a mess and I loved that about him. Carter meets Prince Edgard, the actual friggin Prince of England at an event his company is hosting for the Prince, and they hit it off. They end up kind of dating, kind of immediately falling in love and taking off on a whirlwind of a romance very quickly. Complete with SO MANY obstacles. Seriously, poor Carter is a wreck and I felt so much secondhand embarrassment for this kid at times. One word: trifle.

This book is very funny. The Queen had me laughing out loud several times, as did Carter's inner monologue. the side characters have some excellent lines and were some of my favorite parts of the book. However, I struggled a bit with the pacing. I'm pretty good at suspending my disbelief most of the time, but even I struggled with how quickly these two got together. Also, and this is admittedly nit-picky, but there was a quite a bit of telling me what happened after the fact vs letting me read and live it with the characters. That took me out of the story a bit.

Overall, this was an enjoyable, light read. I loved Carter and Edgar and I think this will do well as long as people don't go into it expecting it to be exactly like another royal prince story we all know and love.