The Book: My Wicked Prince by Molly O'Keefe
The Particulars: Contemporary romance, 2019, In Print, Available in digital
Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: O'Keefe is an autobuy dating back to her days writing for Harlequin SuperRomance.
The Review: I'm so old that I remember the days when 99% of romance readers would have a fit of apoplexy if you had the nerve to suggest that very good romances could be capably written in first-person point of view. Point of fact, I might have been the only resident of Romancelandia at that time willing to admit I LOVED first person - having started out life as a mystery reader where it's much more common. Then a funny thing happened. Self-publishing. And suddenly everyone and their dead grandmother was self-publishing romances in first-person, often with shifting head-hopping chapters (hero and heroine point of view). And you know what? A lot of them suck...and not in a good way. Because trust me gentle readers, there is such a thing as terribly written first person and we're neck deep in it here in the waters of Romancelandia.
I'm not sure why this is exactly (other than me being cranky and old) but I think it's a diluting of authorial voices. There's just a lot of blah, interchangeable first person out there. I'll read one and a couple days later I struggle to recall anything. Characters, plot, title, maybe I'll remember the author? - the book I just read is like a black hole in my memory.
Then there's Molly O'Keefe. I'll walk off a cliff to read her first person, and I suspect it's because she has certain writing tics (and plot bunnies) that feed into the id part of my brain. Her heroines always seem determined to save the world (or at least their little corner of it), her heroes positively wallow in angst, and the tension! The sweet, glorious, delicious tension!
My Wicked Prince reminded me of a longer Harlequin Presents, but with hotter sex. Brenna's mother is a bartender in their tiny Nordic country of Vasgar when she agrees to marry the King. It's basically a marriage of convenience. Mom wants to be Queen and the King wants to distract everyone from the fact his country is broke. Brenna can barely be bothered, attending college in Scotland and with dreams of one day working for the United Nations. But with Mom negotiating her the title of princess, it is expected that Brenna will attend the wedding - which immediately sets her in the crosshairs of her soon-to-be stepbrother, Gunnar Falk.
Gunnar is the poor little rich boy prince with Daddy Issues. He's a manwhore who parties his life away and likes to make things as embarrassing as possible for the old man via the press. Now there's this marriage and a new stepsister, and it's all just so bothersome. Then he locks eyes on Brenna and everything changes. Oh sure, there's sparing and he says some awful things - but she dishes it right back even as she does a terrible job of hiding her vulnerabilities. She also challenges Gunnar at every turn, which makes him want to be a better man, even if he won't quite admit that to himself. The attraction is very much there and very much not a good thing. They're now siblings (yes, they're grown-ass adults but still...) under the glare of a royal spotlight, trying to help a country on the verge of bankruptcy as the King continues to be a terrible leader and Gunnar's uncle pulling strings behind the scenes to claim the throne for himself. Oh, and did I mention that it's expected that Gunnar marry an heiress to bolster the country's coffers? Then, as inevitably happens in a romance novel, they succumb to their attraction and it all blows up in their faces.
This is the first romance I've read this year that kept me fully and actively engaged to the point where I wanted to keep reading. That being said, I didn't love it and most of that is due to authorial choices O'Keefe made. The first chapter opens in present day, with Brenna confronting Gunnar at his posh nightclub in New York City. It's a great opening chapter. Angst and sparring and lots of sizzling tension. Then we get to Chapter 2 which immediately dumps us in flashback mode, a couple weeks prior to the royal wedding. 90% of this story is in flashbacks - which...not a fan. Especially since the first chapter sets up the reader for the present-day experience. I still liked the story, but the execution wasn't necessarily what I wanted.
It's also one of those stories where there is just SO much angst and SO many roadblocks centered around "obligations" - that it does get exhausting after a while. Both Brenna and Gunnar hiding behind their defense mechanisms, Gunnar flat-out lying to Brenna to push her away which necessitates the third act separation. What I did like about this portion of the story however is that O'Keefe removes Brenna's tendency for rose-colored glasses. The gloves are off and if Gunnar is going to be a dickhead, well she's going to save their country without him.
I have an interesting history with royalty books (I don't actively dislike them, but neither are they favorites) and I mostly liked this one. There were times I wanted to slap Gunnar into next Tuesday and there were times I wanted to shake Brenna for wearing her foolish heart so prominently on her sleeve - but there's great tension, the anger and attraction between the two electrically leaping off the page. It's trademark O'Keefe with a royalty candy-coated shell.
Final Grade = B-
8 comments:
I am with you on royalty romances, don’t love ‘em. Don’t hate ‘em. I will read them if it is an author I trust or a trope I love. This one sounds intriguing enough I will put it on my “maybe” list. (I swear I’m trying to buy fewer books!)
My thing about alternating person is that lots of times authors don’t try very hard to make the different characters *sound* different. I don’t neatly read a book a chapter at a time, or even a scene at a time and if I get confused about whose head I’m in too many times (aka more than once) I dnf very fast. To me it shows a lack of respect for your reader’s time and patience.
IMy choice for the challenge was more fantasy than strictly fairy tale. THE MIDWINTER MAIL ORDER BRIDE by Kati Wilde. I am not even sure how to describe this. Picture “chicks and chainmail” fantasy with a slow burn road trip adventure between a Conan-esque character and feisty virgin warrior princess. I have a soft spot for dumb movies like BEASTMASTER and SCORPION KING as rainy Saturday afternoon entertainment, but have never had a desire to read the old skool books with old skool values. This sounded different enough to intrigue me. The Conan character is still really vengeful and angry (do not read this if you have issues with gore), but he’s also really into consent and being a fair ruler (even though he’s not sure he knows how to be?) If that sounds a wee bit ridiculous to you, yeah, you’re not wrong. But I felt like it straddled sincerity and campiness well and worked really well for a novella. A full book would be harder to pull off, but the other books are available on Kindle Unlimited, so I might give them a look at least.
@Wendy: Funny, my read for this month's TBR was also in first person (present tense to boot), and...I'm still not a fan. I have read some where I get lost in the story so I don't notice, but mostly I do notice, and noticing takes me out of the story, if that makes sense.
@Jill: Regarding the head-hoping thing, if I cannot tell the difference in character point of view, because all the characters 'sound' the same, that's a huge negative mark for the writer. Good characterization, to me, means that each character talks like themselves, they way people do.
I'm one of those people that started bemoaning first person when it really started hitting romance, I feel like popular New Adult with Indie really pushed this forward. I can handle first person pov but more so in Gothic, where I feel that pov fits the genre more.
terribly written first person and we're neck deep in it here in the waters of Romancelandia.
I've started to feel like the tide is maybe turning away again? I don't know, maybe I've just been better at avoiding it, I don't give New Adults as much a chance anymore.
Molly O'Keefe is an author I need to get back to. When I see her name, I just think Emotion and Raw, that delicious angst you talk about.
I can take or leave royalty books. I tend to avoid contemporary royalty books, because royals are just so superfluous to modern life and I can't bring myself to care. As someone who enjoys the trope of various fairy tales, though, its hard to avoid royalty altogether, LOL.
I unearthed another gem of a 90s Harlequin Historical this month! Last year I read "The Sleeping Beauty" by Jacqueline Navin for this prompt, and this year I chose "Beauty and the Beast" by Taylor Ryan. It is exactly what it sounds like, but with the twist that the "Beast" isn't the usual physically scarred hero, but one bearing the weight of psychological trauma, and the "Beauty" is more Serenity Prayer/tranquility than Manic Pixie Dream Girl. The final third was a complete letdown, but otherwise the story is very gentle, low-angst, character-driven goodness.
Wendy, totally agree with the first person POV.
To me, it feels sometimes the characters sound incredibly childish in the way they speak/think.
Some authors manage to convey amazing things this way; however, the majority doesn't and I have disliked some books because of this.
I remember those days, Wendy, in regards to first person. I kept trying them because when done right I really enjoy them. Sounds like you all had fun exploring your TBR. I'm reading one that Wendy reviewed last year or the year before. Jill - as you can see, this challenge gets me to buy more than I read. LOL That's okay because that part is fun for me, too. Not done with mine yet, review will be up this week.
I remember reading my first alternating first-person POV romance and I struggled. I still do at times, but it works better in audiobook format when there are two different narrators for the two POVs. Now I don't mind it as much, but I will get confused sometimes, especially if I don't finish a POV before stopping.
Sounds like you had a complex relationship with this story - engaged, but struggling. The constant flashbacks would have deterred me as well.
I think Jill hit the nail on the head for me - unless the author can pull off two distinctive voices with her first POV head-hopping, it doesn't work for me. Without it your two characters sound the same and that's the kiss of death with head-hopping and first person.
Also, good point on Gothics. I cut my reading teeth on mystery/suspense and there's SO much first person there, but not quite as much head-hopping. Usually you're living inside the head of the protagonist and seeing everything thru their eyes, and that can work so very well in suspense because it can build...well, suspense LOL
The more I think about this book the more I've taken to describing it as "Harlequin Presents with hotter sex." O'Keefe wrote many books for Harlequin (Duets, Flipside, SuperRomance) and I like to think she had a jones for Presents and this was her way of working through it LOL
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