When I see “gay royal romance” my usual response is “say no more, I’m sold.” But I was not sold with this one. It’s fine. It’s a lark. It seemed quite implausible. And not implausible in a “would the heir to the throne of England really end up with a some random event planner from NJ” way which would be 100% acceptable/expected in a romance like this, but more in a “would the heir to the throne of England really take a verbal poll of his security staff if he should sleep with some random event planner while in front of said event planner?” Would the chief of staff really call his employer, the prince, a “repellent little sex rodent” to his face?? No, no he would not.

The other issue I have with this book is that I have no idea WHY they like each other, let alone how they make it all the way to love. We learn a lot about Carter because the bulk of the writing is dedicated to his hilarious and snide tangents, but rarely covers anything deeper than surface level thoughts of rugby, wedding gowns, and how hot the prince is. For the first half of the book, the protagonists’ conversations are not described at all, just glossed over broadly, so it doesn’t seem like they know each other very well but apparently it’s well enough to invite a prince to your sister’s wedding. After two days of knowing this prince. With no prior security protocol in place to ensure that someone doesn’t try something with the literal prince of England.

It’s clearly written to be quite funny, and it is a lark, but this book missed the mark for me.