I completely forgot about this series of royal romances that all take place within the same two weeks leading up to the ball that celebrates the big anniversary of a fictional European country, because obviously that's the best time for five royal siblings to get engrossed in personal melodrama and find their happy endings. With a premise like that, somehow I find trouble taking any of the books seriously, but at the same time they can be a fun distraction while I do boring things. So when I stumbled upon this one scrolling through my audiobook collection, I hit play.

The first two books in the series, despite being about different couples and having different authors, felt kind of like the same story, so Throne Together was a nice change. Instead of a prince/commoner pairing, there are two princes, and the story, while staying focused on the feels, still delves a lot into the intricacies of being a modern royal, to the point that the chapters that are built around the characters' princely obligations read almost like a workplace romance. It provides more insight than the previous books on the Rosavia politics and status, as well of that of the equally fictional neighboring kingdom of Thedes. I was even finally able to pinpoint where both would be on the real world map! Which of course led to too much overthinking on my part, because apparently my brain can't just accept "alternate world" without trying to recreate the entire history of how Rosavia and Thedes came to be, what their roles/situations must have been during WW2 and WW1 before that, which empires they're the shards of, and, and, and. Come on, brain! This is just silly fun!

The romance itself was cute, though honestly, the amount of miscommunication drove me up the wall. I just had trouble reconciling the life-long "I know you better than I know yourself" friendship with the whole "let's freak out and not talk for four years before we finally pick up right where we left off" premise. It was entertaining, don't get me wrong! But. SO MUCH miscommunication. Just so much. But also a lot of sappy romantic fun, especially when they finally start explaining themselves to each other. And it was fun to see this story unfold against the tangible backdrop of all the other drama that Jules's brothers were getting up to. The writing was pretty nice, too, full of humor that ranged from giggle-inducing to silly eyeroll-inducing. Also, cats! Cats make everything better.

Oh, and I didn't expect Jules to be so clearly on the ace spectrum. It was a welcome surprise. I wouldn't call the representation perfect, but I did enjoy its presence.