
Author: Nichole Chase
Publisher: Nicole Chase
Cover Design: Okay Creations
Page count: 464
Kindle version: $.99
Source: my wallet
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Summary: Samantha Rousseau is used to getting her hands dirty. Working toward a master’s degree in wildlife biology while helping take care of her sick father, she has no time for celebrity gossip, designer clothes, or lazy vacations. So when a duchess from the small country of Lilaria invites her to dinner, Samantha assumes it’s to discuss a donation for the program. The truth will change the course of her life in ways she never dreamed.
Alex D’Lynsal is trying to keep his name clean. As crown prince of Lilaria, he’s had his share of scandalous headlines, but the latest pictures have sent him packing to America and forced him to swear off women—especially women in the public eye. That is, until he meets Samantha Rousseau. She’s stubborn, feisty, and incredibly sexy. Not to mention heiress to an estate in his country, which makes her everyone’s front-page news.
While Sam tries to navigate the new world of politics and wealth, she will also have to dodge her growing feelings for Alex. Giving in to them means more than just falling in love; it would mean accepting the weight of an entire country on her shoulders.
Review: I've been eyeing this book for a while now, since the cover was exceptionally cute. I'll admit it right now, I'm a cover whore. I will fall for a cover no matter what is in the book, most often lucking out that the book is well written with a good plot, but on a occasion getting a real doozy. Fortunately for Suddenly Royal and myself, the cover matches the insides. I was a very happy reader afterward. Good job, Nichole Chase.
The Good: What Chase has done is give her readers something that every woman in some point their lives have dreamed about: becoming Cinderella, just minus the evil stepmother and stepsisters. Even though the female protagonist, Samantha Rousseau, is a very reluctant Cinderella or in this story a Duchess, she embraces her new found lineage and embarks on the unknown by traveling to Lilaria to find out about her past and possibly her future. And to accept the responsibility of her lands and the people dependant on them. All the while she's worrying about her sick father back home in the states and what the next headline will say about her. No pressure.
Of course, like in Cinderella, there is a handsome crown prince. Alex D'Lynsal seems to be along for the ride when he and his aunt, another Duchess from the make believe country of Lilaria, happen to come to the college town where Sam lives. What turns into an amusing woman, soon turns into the dream of more for Alex. And he in turns becomes all swoony with Sam.
What more can a girl ask for? Well, Sam for one, wants reality instead of the dream. She has a firm head on her shoulders (she's a well-educated woman) and doesn't want to get swept up in the fantasy like you would think she would (until this point her only concerns are her father's health and completing her degree) She's skeptical, almost to a fault, which puts a strain on her budding relationship with Alex. Top that with the constant invasion of the paparazzi following her every move and reminding her that her new "friend" Alex has been a philanderer in his past, it's wonder that Sam would be wary of her new station as Duchess of Rousseau.
What I loved about Sam was that she asked all the questions I would ask, she was very real. Sometimes I want to have make believe and sometimes I was reality and Suddenly Royal was a good mixture of them both. She was a strong female character which is always refreshing to read and Alex had a perfect combination of charm and cockiness that makes the best playboy cocktail. Yum!
I enjoyed seeing a little bit into what the royalty of the world would experience, albeit, a washed down version. In reality, I think things are a lot more secure. For example, the hottest new American Duchess wouldn't be dancing it up at the club with the princess and be easily accessible to anyone. There would be more security, blah, blah blah...
But this is a book....so I'll let this go. LOL.
The Needs Improvement: I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Either it be with Alex, some conflict in Lilaria, Sam not being the actual descendant of the Rousseau family, or she found out some squandered her family's fortune. But none of that happened. I felt that they spent so much time in the States before going to Lilaria, it wasn't until the last half of the book that you see Sam taking part of anything pertaining to royalty. You didn't even really get into her "crowning" or her wedding so much. I was about eighty percent done when I wondered if there was going to be a sequel because I didn't think Chase could have wrapped up the book so quickly. But alas, she did. The ending felt rushed.
Chase kept hinting around to Alex's whorey ways, but you never really see anything. I was expecting him to be a bad boy who falls in love with the right woman (Sam) but he really was the good boy who falls in love with the right woman (Sam). No conflict, no resolution. She didn't trust him because he was rumored to be a womanizer, but in the end there was no big turning point for them. It only took Sam's new assistant, Chadwick, and the crown princess, Cathy, to tell her that she was being too pigheaded to see that Alex was in love with her and she should trust him. Done. Goo Goo eye for Sam.
I felt like i needed something....more.
But the UST was out of this world! When Sam and Alex finally do get together....
Editing: Top notch! It was a joy to read this.
Rating: Four lip bites for a nice tight story that engaged me from the beginning to the end.

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