A-
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Theme: Fake Relationship
Archetype: Diverse Protagonists, Royalty
The Princess Trap by Talia Hibbert made me feel really good. It was the read I needed for a crappy day and it went down like a hot cup of tea followed by a cookie. The pacing was a little off at the end, but my appreciation for an emotionally-fluent hero let me overlook that. Also the heroine wears a Dolly Parton tee shirt to bed and fuck yea, Dolly Parton. I do want to add a trigger warning for depictions of child abuse in this book.
Cherry Neita works in human resources at an elite private school in England. She hears whispers one day about a very handsome visitor and goes to scope it out. She has lunch with the potential donor, Prince Ruben of Helgmøre, never knowing he’s royalty. They hit it off and agree to go on another date, which somehow leads to Cherry and Ruben making out in front of her apartment and getting caught by the paparazzi.
Cherry is pissed that Ruben didn’t say, “Oh, BTW, I’m a prince” and rightfully so. She’s also not thrilled when he asks her to pose as his fiancée for damage control reasons. Ruben was recently involved in a scandal where a lover of his recorded some of their sexy talk and then released the tape to humiliate him because he didn’t want to marry her. Ruben is into power play and the tape also contained a reference to his bisexuality (although the fact that he’s bi is never explored further in the book). In order to appease his brother, the king and a real asshole, Ruben offers Cherry a boatload of money to pretend to be his fiancée for a year.
Cherry accepts because her entire family is strained with putting her brilliant younger sister through an Ivy League school while also paying for said sister’s chronic illness. The offer Ruben is making her would alleviate the pressure on everyone.
So of course while they are in Helgmøre pretending to be in love, they start actually feeling things for each other.
I really love Cherry. She’s smart and tough and she stands up for herself and the people around her. She’s not sucked in by the Cinderella fantasy of living with Ruben. She expects a respectful partnership from him, and she won’t accept less.
Cherry is Black and Ruben is White, so they both have to navigate having a biracial relationship in a traditional, conservative White environment (Helgmøre is in Scandinavia somewhere). Cherry faces down microagressions from Ruben’s family, including his half-sister Sophronia
“What an interesting name,” Sophronia continued, her voice dripping with mockery. She was one to fucking talk. “Where does it come from.”
“Sophy,” Ruben said, his tone warning.
“Calm yourself, little brother. I am speaking with my future sister-in-law.”
Sophronia’s real sister-in-law, the pale and birdlike Lydia, had spent the first half of this strained dinner doing everything she could to avoid Sophronia’s attention. And her husband’s. Cherry rather thought that said it all.
Still, she forced herself to smile at Ruben’s painfully beautiful sister. She faced off the porcelain skin, the ice-blue eyes and the golden hair, so unassuming on Lydia and so very devastating on Sophronia. “The Caribbean,” she said.
“Ah! You’re from the West Indies.”
Cherry’s jaw set. How strange; the colonial name sounded fine coming from the lips of her migrant grandparents, but corrosive from Sophronia.
“I am a British Jamaican,” she said slowly. “Third generation.”
“Is that what they call it? Fascinating.”
Fuck you, Sophronia.
Cherry never backs down in front of Ruben’s exceptionally shitty family, never buckling. She’s remarkably strong, and I adore a badass heroine.
Ruben, though, was really the star for me as he was an example of what is sometimes missing in dominant, confident heroes. Ruben is an alpha hero. He likes to be dominant in the bedroom. He’s wealthy and powerful, but even when he proposes a fake engagement to Cherry, he doesn’t wield that power or wealth in a way felt manipulative or exploitative. He’s also very aware of his emotions and of how his actions impact others. He’s not perfectly self-aware (who is) but he demonstrates that you can have a sexy, alpha hero who is also perfectly capable of not being an emotionally constipated asshat.
I get so sick of “tough” heroes who can’t sort out their feels and as a result hurt other people. Or who have been through trauma and as a result can’t have an emotion again. Or who use the fact that they are wealthy/ powerful/ sexually dominant to steamroll the heroine. Whenever I meet that guy, the guy who has zero emotionally fluency, I think of this:
Ruben has past trauma. His older half-brother, King Asshole, abused Ruben as a child and their relationship is still fraught and full of pain. Sophy, as evidence from the earlier passage, is genuinely awful person. Their father abdicated the throne to be with Ruben’s mother, a commoner, and the scandal of that has always followed Ruben around. Ruben knows he was abused. He knows that the abuse helped form who he is as a adult. He doesn’t use that as an excuse to totally close himself off or hurt anyone else.
Ruben is also sexually dominant, but again, there’s no steamrolling, and this book is an excellent example of how consent is sexy:
“Can I kiss you?”
Four words. His voice was as soft as his eyes. He was all folded up into the tiny car’s front seat, his long legs bent, his powerful thighs straining at his suit trousers, and…oh.
Something else strained at his suit trousers, too, hard and thick. She let her eyes rest on his erection for a second before looking back up at him. He met her gaze easily, making no move to hide his arousal, and Cherry’s nerves disappeared. Anticipation was a red-hot weight in her chest, and desire thrummed through her pulse.
He raised a hand and grasped the back of her neck, pushing her hair aside. The warm weight of his palm rested against her skin, and then he leant over the centre console towards her. His forehead bumped gently against hers.
“You have to tell me,” he whispered. “Yes or no. Can I kiss you?”
And she sounded embarrassingly breathless when she said, “Yes.”
Most of the conflict in this book is Cherry and Ruben really falling in love while faking an engagement, but there’s a fair dose of external conflict coming from Ruben’s truly terrifying family. They make the Borgias look like a fucking delight. There is a lot packed into the end of this book, which I think made it feel a little uneven at the end, but it didn’t drastically impact my enjoyment of the romance.
So if you want a sexy, fun contemporary romance with a really fantastic pair of main characters, you should totally check out The Princess Trap.
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Thanks!
Perfect for keeping me hyped for the royal wedding!
Thank you, Elyse. I rather liked the first half of this. This is the one that starts in a very credibly contemporary English environment, although it quickly shifts to the faux-Scandinavian territory. The dialogue was amusing, the characters interesting and the hero, in particular, very emotional; often disturbed, unsettled, anxious, but no less assertive in his pursuit of the heroine. I really enjoyed that.
The Borgia-family stuff was far too excessive for me and did detract from the reading experience. Instead, I think Hibbert could have developed the heroine’s character rather more. There were some interesting ideas about her relationship with that younger sister, and the way she was used to wrapping her male colleagues around her little finger that didn’t go anywhere. The outsider/class conflict/inter-racial aspects were all meaty issues that were only touched on. And all that melodrama at the end was just too much. So I’d probably give this a B-. It did make me want to read more of Hibbert’s work.
I am a weirdo who couldn’t stand Bad for the Boss, but I’m glad I picked up this one. I agree with Hazel, there were parts in the English setting I was more interested in exploring (the sister relationship, how Cherry is used to wrapping men around her little finger at her job), so I was kind of meh on the Scandanavia parts. Cherry is a great character, and I’m glad they kind of acknowledged her silly name. If my name was Cherry, I TOO would have a problem with my partner calling me Cherry Pie.
This sounds really good. I was a major fan of Molly Jameson’s Royal Romances–contemporary romantic comedies with majorly strong women–and I’ve been looking for a new author!
I too hate the alpha leads who freak out because a feel got on them so they have to wave the asshat flag like a prosthetic peen to make themselves feel better.
It makes me laugh that the millionaire prince on the cover is wearing a clip-on bow tie.
We all draw the line for suspension of disbelief differently, of course, but I really can’t with the “Scandinavian” kingsdoms that seem to keep cropping up in royal romances. Too close to home, I guess. My (very basic) high school education in geography included having to learn all the European countries and their capitals by heart. I just can’t suspend disbelief enough in order to imagine a few additional kingsdoms tucked in there somewhere.
The hero and heroine sound great, though!
Thanks for the review.
I remember when it came up in a books on sale post. I read the first few pages and the heroine seemed awful. Does she get better?
@MsCellanie her character does level out a bit
I really enjoyed this book, particularly the first half. I agree the pacing was a bit off at the end. I loved the hero–I too dislike emotionally stunted alphas.
Really enjoyed this book. Question to anyone else who has read this: Although the cover shows the hero with a cigar, did he ever smoke in the book?
I’ve only read the kindle excerpt, but I ran into my limit for suspense of disbelief. As a Scandinavian, the name of the imaginary Scandinavian kingdom sounded so completely unreal and made up that it just picked me right out of the story, and made me start noticing other things which now defied my disbelief too. So I ended up not buying the book of course, made me a bit sad because I really liked the premise.
@LineJM: I suspected it was entirely ‘faux’, but have no first hand experience of Scandinavian culture. I’d be interested to hear what else seemed improbable to you.
When you fall out of the suspense of disbelief you perhaps get a bit too sceptical, but I found the whole thing of him being there incognito to be strange and overly convoluted and also how was he so rich? A small Scandinavian island state would not necessarily be a rich country, that might have been explained later in the book though. But I think mostly the abrupt crash out of the story simply made it all ring false.
Re Snowman’s question (sorry, haven’t read the book so don’t know the answer but it brings up a point that’s bothering me a lot): I am suddenly seeing “heroes” smoking on contemporary romance covers and, if any of the authors, artists, or publishers stop in here, respectfully (but loudly and strongly) request a stop to this practice! This is how smoking became normalized in America in the first place–show the beautiful people smoking and the rest of us will think it’s a good thing to do. I’m not trying to put down “the rest of us” but most humans can’t help but aspire to be one of the beautiful people and try to join the club by emulation of visible behavior. Most of the cases I’ve seen so far seem to be for young men with tattoos and cigarettes and I guess someone is trying to make sure we know that he’s a “bad boy.” But he’s also supposed to be the one we are rooting for (because we do all love bad boys) and smoking is a nasty, dangerous, and smelly habit we shouldn’t be promoting. I also think showing the “hero” with a cigarette on the cover is a very lazy thing to do. I actually don’t mind so much reading that the hero lights up occasionally but seeing it on the cover puts me off the book to the point I won’t even “buy” it if it’s free! Sorry for the rant but I just saw another one on a newsletter so I’m freshly upset.
@snowmom I don’t believe he ever smoked in the book
This looks good!! Great review Elyse, all the catnip.
Add me to the Scandi skeptics. There could well be a Scandinavian princess called Sofie/Sophie. There would never be one called Sophronia.
And the cigar on the cover is a big turn-off.
I just finished reading this one! I’d give it a B-.
I want to compliment the cover artist & cover model, as that’s what kept drawing my eye when this popped up in my “recommended for you” list. For what it’s worth, the cigar doesn’t bother me; we all have habits that are bad for us.
And on the positive side, the sexy scenes are very sexy. It’s a good read, and I like the explicit consent discussions. Well done, Talia Hibbett! But I keep getting thrown off by:
Cherry. The name, not the character. The repeated pet names playing off of it kept yanking me out of the mood.
Cherry’s office behavior, starting with the opening scene at the elevator. Honestly, I hated her a little bit by the end of the first chapter. Fortunately, the office hasn’t reappeared.
I’d have much preferred the novel stick with Britain, though (non-office-setting Britain), rather than decamping for Scandinavia. I’d also have liked more of Cherry’s family.
Ah, thank you for the review. Author Talia Hibbert writing skills are unfamiliar to me. The book sounds interesting and fun. Good for relaxation and brightening up the day.
“I get so sick of “tough” heroes who can’t sort out their feels and as a result hurt other people. Or who have been through trauma and as a result can’t have an emotion again. Or who use the fact that they are wealthy/ powerful/ sexually dominant to steamroll the heroine.”
I just DNF a book like that. I don’t mind sexually dominant heroes or BDSM storylines (although aren’t they a bit overdone these days?). I do mind the ones who aren’t “safe, sane and consensual” but who just start spanking (or whatever) without consent and the heroine finds to her surprise that it turns her on … so that’s okay? It’s feeding into rape culture, since it implies that all women really want to be physically dominated, they just don’t know it so men have to show them!
One of the things I DO like about well-done BDSM is all the talking that goes on about what the parties want out of the relationship and the fact that the heroes really are in touch with their feelings and desires beyond “I like to dominate” to “I like to dominate and here’s what I get out of it and here are the things I can do that will satisfy that need.”