A Princess by Christmas
In my defense, I bought this book in 2020 when I was working a mind numbing retail job that was open until midnight all throughout Christmas.
Hollis Honeycutt runs a gossip gazette in London, and as the sister of a future queen and best friend of a duchess, she gets all of the good stuff. Including being invited to some of the events surrounding a certain peace treaty, where she runs into Marek Brendan. Marek has heard that there is treason happening that threatens Wesloria, his home country, and he’s here to sniff it out. With the curious Ms. Honeycutt sniffing around, though, there’s some secrets he needs to work to keep from her while he tries to save the treaty.
This was a cute little read. It reminded me a lot of Bridgerton, which makes sense since they’re both mass market paperbacks that are sold in supermarkets and drug stores, one of them just so happens to be a Netflix series. Hollis feels like a historical fiction version of a manic pixie dream girl, though, but Marek is really not here for it which makes her a little less insufferable. Marek was a surprisingly refreshing character. You don’t usually go looking at MMPB for disabled representation, but this book really brought it. Marek is half-deaf, and it’s not joked about nor do the characters treat him any differently because he can’t hear. If anything, they’re more accommodating once they realize that he can’t hear out of his right ear.
I just wanted a fun lil romp, and I got it. The title is a little misleading, though, since Marek proposed by Christmas but no one besides Hollis knows that he’s the long lost prince. The by-title, A Royal Wedding, is also a lie because there’s a time skip to Hollis and Marek living in Wesloria, and with a child. There wasn’t a wedding, which made me a little sad. I suppose if I really want a wedding that badly, I can read the other two books, but I think this was a one and done for me. It was cute, but I’m not going to actively search it out.
Trigger warnings: none that I can remember? There’s like…kissing but that’s about it.
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