Review: Her Secret Prince by Madeline Ash
Her Secret Prince by Madeline Ash
Publisher: Tule Publishing
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: April 7th, 2015
Pages: 117 pages
Series: Royal Holiday (Book #2)
Find it at: Tule Publishing | Amazon | Goodreads
At sixteen, Dee Johnson gambled her heart on her best friend Jed Brown – and lost when he disappeared without a trace.
Ten years on, Dee’s life is uprooted when Jed turns up on her doorstep, asking for her help.
Dee has been left behind by everyone she’s loved: her parents, her close friend Alexia, and a stream of lovers. She moves fast with men and suspects this is why they move on fast. Now that’s Jed’s back in her life, she’s taking no chances. Despite the attraction ripping at her seams, she holds back, knowing she wouldn’t recover from being loved and left by him a second time.
A constant traveler, Jed has only felt at home once in his life – with Dee. Now that he’s found her again, he’s determined to make up for lost time. He’ll never leave her again.
Until an unexpectedly royal revelation threatens to strip Jed of his freedom and future – including his place by Dee’s side.
I am a sucker for reunion romances. They are by far my all time favorite story to read, which is why I was so looking forward to reading this book. I really wanted to like it, too. But the more pages I read, the more clear it became that there was a disconnect between me as the reader and the characters in the story. Because of that disconnect, this book disappointed me.
Given the situation and the author’s writing style, this held the potential to be a fantastic story, but the characters of Dee and Jed don’t feel as well-rounded as they should be and the storyline and scenes aren’t as fleshed out as they need to be for me to get truly invested in what’s happening. More than once, I felt as if I was being told what was going on instead of shown. I wanted to be brought along on the journey with Jed and Dee, but that just didn’t happen for me this time. Maybe I expected too much going in because I loved the first book in the Royal Holiday series so much, but the more I read in, the more I realized I didn’t care about the people in this story. I’m honestly sad about that. This could’ve been a great read, with a trope I favor above all others.
Part of me thinks the issues I had with this book might’ve been solved if the author had more time to write it–not that I know how long they had to write the story–or more word count to develop the characters and the story. Maybe flesh out some of the scenes so they don’t come across as disjointed or as rushed as they felt to me. I don’t know. I do know that reading is subjective, and this is only one woman’s opinion. A lot of other people who left reviews on this story loved this book, so I can only suggest you give it a try for yourself and see what you think. You may very well love it and think me crazy for not loving it, too. I’m okay with that. And if you do love it and want to come back here to tell me why and how much you love it, I’d love to hear about it.
* I received a copy of this Arc by the publisher on NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review *
