Reviews
I loooved this book. If you think it’s Harry and Meghan fan fic think again, yes it’s a set up of an American and British royalty but it’s just not the same vibe. She’s a rapper and he’s nowhere near in line for the throne. With that aside the forced proximity, secret relationship, open door spice, both of them trying to resist their attraction and eventual love- ahhh, delicious.
3.75
I ADORE the main characters of this book. They are rational, great communicators, and so self aware. The story is full of everything I love in a good romance book: black women, a prince, academia, a big gorgeous house, smut, cute scenes, pr plot lines, and soooo much more.
I could talk about how much I enjoyed this book for hourssss. Can’t wait to read the sequel story!
Biggest critique would be that certain lines regarding Dani’s blackness would be too cringe. Like yes girl, I know you’re not going to wet your hair in the shower, did we need to randomly interject that into the sentence??
I enjoyed most of this book, but unfortunately the last quarter dragged for me a bit. I'm happy with the ending, but I guess by midway I was kind of bored with Jameson (Dani was awesome throughout), it was a bummer to see him outside of his scholarly element.
I thought about dropping it at 90% but I was just too close to finishing 😅 The audiobook was pretty good, the actress who voiced Dani's chapters was great. The actor voicing Jameson did a kind of silly high-pitched southern accent for Dani, which was pretty incongruous with Dani's VA's own sultry, husky voice.
I was most interested in Duchess's commentary of celebrity life and music industry expectations, especially as a Black woman. Most of that is touched on in the beginning of the novel. I felt like Jameson sort of understood her on a hypothetical level, but there wasn't any effort to have any British people of color as characters. (Although it was mentioned that Jameson has dated Black women before, but it felt like a throwaway line.) Jameson was kind and supportive but I feel like they didn't dig too much into those conversations, and more often just linked her celebrity struggles to his royal struggles. (And I may just not be into historical fiction monarchy stories, lol. I'm done reading about British royalty for a while.)
This romance is unusual since our leads don't even meet for the first 25% of the book. They get together suddenly but it quickly evolves into a full-blown romance relationship, which I thought was cute. They're so INTO each other! Although Jameson spends a lot of time frustrated with her at the beginning (she was living in his house, but come on, it's ginormous). The spicy scenes were pretty decent, although not always written to my taste.
Leaning towards 2.5 stars since my overall reaction is lukewarm.
4.5 ⭐️
Genre: Adult Romance
Age group : Adult
POV : Third person POV / Dual
Characters: 4/5 ⭐️
Plot: 4/5 ⭐️
Setting/Themes: 5/5 ⭐️
Writing: 4.5/5 ⭐️
Spice: 3.5/5 ⭐️
• Please check TWs & CWs: Mature language, sexual scenes, micro agression, racism & etc
• Tropes: forbidden romance
• ongoing
“Seeing her happy made him happy.”
I LOVED THIS SO MUCH, FOR SO MANY REASONS <33
1. It had me kicking my feet in the air like a lovesick puppy
2. I LoVED THE WAY the author discussed racism and classism realistically.
3. Interracial couple , with a pop princess and royal prince???? Uh, YES.
Dani, Duchess. I loved her so much. She is the epitome of strength, of a BADASS BOSS. Her success is something I admire and her personality is something I absolutely yearn. She is an inspiration.
Jameson. He’s cute. He’s caring and I have a thing for hot-professors-who- graduated-from-academically-rigorous-institution types <33
I am super excited for the next book.
This was so much fun to read! Loved that Jameson was OBSESSED with Dani. Their forced proximity at the beginning was perfect. The sex scenes were hot as fuck. Great read, cannot wait for the next book and the rest of their story!
