THE PRINCE'S PLAYBOOK by Nora Phoenix

3.5* A decent storyline that thankfully is pretty much trope-free, although you do need to suspend disbelief a bit.

This is a cute, romantic and if you can get over the prince-pauper thing - to use this purely as a comparison between the leads' backgrounds and upbringing - the tale works. Adan is sweet and family orientated, and he's got working-class parents who've sacrificed a lot for him. I loved that when he hit the big time, he insisted that they both retire.

Nils didn't have a stick up his royal arse, which helped, but that was the bit that required suspension of disbelief, because who in 2026 isn't friends with Google? It didn't seem believable that no one clocked who he was. 

The tale was plausible, giving them an organic reason to meet, but that both embraced being bi so easily and quickly felt a bit 'hmm...yeah...' Nils was more believable than Adan, so that's where the tale lost 1* for me. Too much immediate acceptance, not a worry about whether this was real or not, or about the optics in a country that's reversing everything DEI and is cruel to many on a good day. It lacked realism, but the royalty aspect was a convenient distraction when they outed themselves. Theirs feels like a HFN more than a HEA, which I think was more realistic, given that Adan was only 20 and at the start of his career. I think it had hints of becoming the latter, especially with some very few words on the final page. We didn't get to see the leads enough years into their future, which lost the tale 0.5* for me, but it was short and uncomplicated, and trope-free.

ARC courtesy of Boldwood Books and NetGalley, for my reading pleasure 

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