Crown prince Zadkiel grew up hearing the stories of how his parents found true love at the Empress’s Royal Matchmaking Competition.
But as the twelve candidates gather to compete to become his future bride, he learns that his parents might not be the star-crossed lovers he always believed.
And his mother might be hiding bigger secrets than who she really loves.
As secret treaties and hidden alliances drive the empire toward civil war, will Zadkiel be able to move past his mother’s betrayal and find true love? Or will their enemies succeed in finally assassinating a member of the royal family?

"Oh my mermaids! I mentally whimpered like a wounded puppy and imagined banging my head against a wall. She is so infuriating!"

This quote sums up my feelings about the book — and gives a good example of the writing style. Despite the promise of a high stakes story full of intrigue, betrayal, and heartbreaking romance, the plot is contrived and inconsistent, the characters one-dimensional, and the writing overwrought.

Historical inaccuracies abound, from fake nails and eyelash curlers to the usage of modern words — even the word "date" is out of time and place.
The author also has some strong opinions on a number of topics, such as “period syncing,” Lima beans as torture devices, the actress Zendaya (seriously, what did she ever do to you?), and feminism. As in, the author is anti-feminist but she stuffs her books full of things she thinks feminists want.

None of the characters were at all likable or even relatable. The only person I felt any sympathy for was the Emperor who had it repeatedly rubbed in his face that he was his wife's fourth choice.
All twelve of the contestants were one-dimensional. They were either "quiet," or "perfect" or "foolish" or "mean" or "irresistibly beautiful." Whatever their attribute, that was their entire personality and they could be nothing else.

It was clear the author was still in love with Empress Qloey — the main character from the previous book. Despite Qloey’s obvious biases, these opinions were defended in such a contrived manner, despite her supporting child slaves, prolonged torture, and handing over prisoners to be slaughtered.

Zadkiel was the most inconsistent, unrelatable, and infuriating character I've ever read. He adores his mommy and refuses to hear anyone speak negatively of her — yet he already views himself as the Emperor and the empire as under his own rule. He's furious at his sister attempting to flirt with and spend time with the visiting princes — while he has only time for the more beautiful contestants (and commends himself for only kissing four of them, while his mom kissed five during her Royal Matchmaking Competition.)

The book ended on a cliffhanger, but a very unfortunate one. None of the plot lines were resolved, and while the storyline offered a natural place to split it (that would still have resulted in a cliffhanger), the author chose not to take it. A few pages further on would have gotten us to the first round of eliminations, ramping up the tension for the next book. Instead, we're left with a few obvious choices for whom Zadkiel would eliminate, but no satisfaction of seeing the favorites remain.
At least having a cliffhanger at all leaves us with the opportunity to write fanfiction in which the assassins are successful.

The root problem of the book is that it feels like the author has no awareness of any of the issues she’s trying to write, like politics and slavery and class issues. The story would have greatly benefited from these being eliminated from the story.

I really wanted to like this book. It was such a fun premise, and I love marriage competition books. Which was why I was excited to see it was mostly from the Prince’s perspective. The jokes started off good and I had high hopes, until about 40% into the story. I feel after that point it just became a, who is Zadkiel in love with today? Kind of energy. It’s very obvious which three he will narrow down to in the next book, which made the other dates feel very forced and unnecessary. After awhile all of the jokes and using Zendaya as comic relief was cringy a bit.

I did enjoy the action that started to pop up towards the end. It gave a break from the sheer amount of dates and gave background tension to the story. I do wish more had happened in this book other than building everything.

Overall if you enjoy funny books and like dating shows this will probably be the book for you. It was okay, and I feel skipping over some of the dates would’ve been beneficial. Especially with two dates in most book days. Would’ve gave more time to flesh out and get to know the main choices prior to the elimination ceremony.

DNFed at 35%. There were so many characters that it was hard to keep track of everyone, they all felt like caricatures (sometimes with accents that made me cringe), and the humor read like it was aimed at a younger audience than the rest of the story. The writing was fine, but I wasn't enjoying myself.

I totally recognize that I might not be the right audience for this book. I kept struggling with the fact that the princesses read as regional stereotypes, and the way wealth is talked about in this book drove me crazy. I know that this book wasn't asking me to engage in deep thoughts, but I wanted more substance from this story.

That said, I think that this book is, at its heart, a parody/love letter to dating shows like The Bachelor, and people who enjoy that sort of thing will be much more likely to have a good time with this than I did.

Thank you, NetGalley, for giving me a chance to read this book. I wish the author all the best.

I am a big fan of The Selection and requested this book thinking it might have the same vibe. The cover and title threw me off a little as I wasn't a fan but I was really pleasantly surprised by the book itself. I was a bit confused by the worldbuilding and felt it a little lacking but this often isn't an issue for me as I prioritise romance/characters. Maybe this is because I didn't read the first book, but other reviews seemed to say this wouldn't matter. I like the idea that there are many books you can follow, remaining in the world and idea if you like the vibe but I would prefer each to be more self-contained. The cliffhanger shows you really need to keep up with reading all of them.

I received this ARC from Netgalley, all opinions are my own! I wanna start off by saying I didn’t read the first one so I don’t know if that would effect how well I received this book if it were to like explain the world/system better but without that prior knowledge I would give this book a solid 3 stars!! It was good, but I’m not necessarily sure I would recommend it because it was a little confusing with all of the different characters but I still had a good enough time! Some things that I enjoyed about this book was the wholesomeness between the royal family members and I think the premise of a fantasy bachelor/bachelorette type competition is super fun! I also loved that we sometimes had POVs from other characters as I was only anticipating the POV of Prince Zadkiel. Being that it was a bachelor type plot, we got to meet a bunch of different characters which ended up being super fun because just like when watching a dating competition show you pick favorites and not favorites. Overall, I had a good time but I’m not sure that I would continue with the series. Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC!

Nikko was a super fun character with lots of humor surrounding him. All the other characters had very distinct personalities and were well developed. A fun and light world with great potential. I cannot wait until the third book.

This Book gave me major The Selection meets Bridgerton meets the genre Fantasy.

I loved the Selection, so this was an easy concept for me to grasp in the book. It ends on a cliff-hanger so beware you will be having to read the third book for it to become a satisfied read.

The beginning was very confusing, and I can only blame myself for not reading the first book of this series. Few readers have also put the book down due to not getting past that initial stage of understanding the characters and the book. You will really need to pull through.

I was disappointed there was no spice, as an avid spice lover. But there was a few bits of humour here and there. This was very plot heavy. It was easy to understand what was happening in this book.

If you enjoyed The Selection the you NEED to add this to your tbr!

Thank you so much for the ARC!
Will post my review on Amazon (UK and US)

I can't believe I am writing this as I loved the first book but this is disappointing. None of the characters, the females for the RMC, stand out to me and it is at times boring. I absoutely adored the first book in this series and was really looking forward to this book. Yes we find out what has happened within the twenty or so years since Qloey's RMC, but it felt like there were some details in there that didn't need to be. Chapters that dragged, details that didn't really needed to be included.

Gutted I really didn't like it when I inhaled the first.

I just reviewed The Royal Matchmaking by Zooey Galloay which was provided through #NetGalley

This book was 2 of 3 in a series and I didn’t feel as though I needed to have read the first book to understand this one.

I did figure out near the end of the second book (aka this book) that it stops midway through and the whole second book is really just setting it up for the third where the action actually happens (or so I’m assuming at this point).

With this being the case I can’t really give a fair review of this book as there wasn’t much that happened in it and I didn’t get a feeling that the lead male character had any personality to speak of.

I think this book was a decent read - it took me an unusually long time to get through it.
As an adult reading the book, I just could not get into the characters or relate to them. I think if I were younger, I would have enjoyed the story and the characters more. The ending was predictable but again, I think if I were actually YA, this wouldn’t have bothered me.
The pacing of the book was good, the character development was okay.

My one critic is that I wish the beginning of the book would have been from the POV of the contestants, or at least from the POV from Kaitlynn. Just my opinion though.

Oh my goodness Zoiy Galloay does it again with this book, her writing sucks you into the story and you cannot put it down. I really enjoyed this one just like I did the first book. Loved the characters as well. I am excited for the next book after such an unexpected ending.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to read and enjoy this title.
I really liked this book although I would recommend to read the first book first.

I received an advance review copy for free on Netgalley. However, I am leaving this review voluntarily and all opinions are my own.

This is the second book in RMC universe. In this book, we follow The Imperial Majesty Qloey's son Zadkiel on his journey to find a wife.

I really wanted to love this book; I loved the premise, it gave me The Selection and Bridgerton vibes, but I found that the world building really fell short and we were introduced to so many characters at the beginning that I found it difficult to keep track and connect with any of the characters.

I also found the prose slightly jarring. The story is meant to be set in medieval times but the characters often used very modern phrases. Although this made the story lighthearted and fun to read, it just felt really non cohesive.

That being said, I did enjoy the book. It was easy to read and I easily finished it in two days. It was fun and there was a nice mix of humour, romance and action. It’s also pretty low stakes, so if you enjoy a cozy fantasy then definitely give it a go.

#TheRoyalMatchmakingCompetitionPrinceZadkielroyaltyromanceromcomromanticcomedyfantasyroyalfairytalefairytaleretellingsfaefaeromancecleanandwholesomeprincezoiygalloay #NetGalley.

All the fun of royal politics, games, manipulations, and of course a royal version of 'The Bachelor'! Book two of three, but outside of the cliffhanger ending leading to book three the story is fun on it's own.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters are fun and you do get to know them personally, given that the book is written in several POV.
If you like The Bachelor and The Selection this is a book for you.
This is a book 2 in this series and you might read book 1 first, but it`s not a necessity.
All in all it was a fun book and I would definitely read book 1 next.

Ok so yes I totally enjoyed this book, but… at times it just seemed to drag. I do enjoy the characters and how we are reacquainted with characters from the first book, (I highly suggest book one before reading this book). Unfortunately this ended on a mild cliffhanger and I didn’t expect that. I will definitely look for the next book but I can’t fully review without an ending.

I really enjoyed this book. This is a new author for me. I did not read the first of the series but didn't need to to know what was going on. This is a cliff hanger. So you do need to read the 3rd.
I recieved a free copy so that I might tell you what I honestly think. Hope you enjoyed my review. Now go enjoy the book.

If you liked the selection series you would like this book. This book is light and easy to read, while the writing and characters are a bit perdictable its still enjoyable.

Very enjoyable. I felt the emotions and reacted. When I get angry, sad and happy all in one book then the author has really done one check of a good job. I would recommend this book to anyone.