Her Off-Limits Prince by Lucy Monroe
Subgenre: contemporary romance
Release date: 12 Jul 2022
Publisher: self-published
Format: ebook
Length: 205 pages
RRP: $5.86 (ebook)
Prince Tor is the youngest of three sons from the House of Asgersen who rule over the small island community of Tapt Oyer. The story opens with King Holger (Tor’s oldest brother) marrying Janice but that’s not where Tor’s attention is focused. The maid-of-honour is Blythe Whitney-Jones, Janice’s best friend. Unfortunately, she is also the object of Tor’s lust, which has him tied in knots. His best friend, Else Kirkson, knows what he’s thinking and encourages him to talk to Blythe. She reasons Blythe feels the same way about him.
Blythe does possess similar feelings, however, she also identifies a number of barriers to pursuing a relationship with Tor. When Tor asks her to join him to talk, she agrees. On arrival, she finds the scene set for seduction, and panics. She scrambles to find reasons for not starting a relationship and eventually flees. Soon after, she feels sorry for how she turned Tor down and returns to see him. She finds him with Else, his date for the wedding, and a drunk Else begins to share some of Tor’s secrets. After helping Tor get Else to bed, Blythe flees again.
Else is under constant pressure from her parents to be ‘perfect’ and to find a husband who will improve the family’s social standing. Since Blythe has turned him down, Tor enacts his plan to help Else. He announces at a family dinner that he and Else have an ‘understanding’, however, they don’t want to announce anything until completing their two years at university to earn Masters degrees, and after Tor completes his two years of compulsory military service.
Blythe can’t believe the announcement and challenges him. This argument soon turns physical and neither can deny the strong physical attraction between them. Then Tor’s royal status creates a new issue. A fellow student who Tor had considered dating, goes to a tabloid offering a story of her liaison with him. Although, the story she’s selling is much more than the reality, and with Tor’s announcement concerning Else, it promises to be a huge scandal. He is thankful to Blythe for alerting him before the story is published and glad the King can employ legal means to shut the story down. This leads to a frank discussion about how their families impacted on their childhood and how they influence their life now. Is a relationship between Tor and Blythe going to be too complicated to pursue? Is it simply physical attraction?
This book began life as Ms Monroe’s first draft for the final story in her Princess by Royal Decree miniseries. When her editor suggested deleting three quarters of the book and starting again, however, Ms Monroe loved the story too much to follow the suggestion. As a result, she wrote this story and self-published it before writing another series to complete her miniseries. I’m glad she made this choice as this story is comprised of interesting stories, multiple layers and great characters including the secondary characters. The opening of the book is a little confusing with a number of characters and backstory introduced but I recommend you keep reading.
reviewed by Tracey
A review copy of this book was provided by the author.
All Rights Reserved Book Blog