#LoyallyLuke #NetGalley

A rebel princess trying to change, a town that hides their royalty so they can live a somewhat normal life. An American carpenter and an orphanage in need of repairs. I've been looking forward to Luke's story, his witty comebacks when texting his sister's, and his light sarcasm. Ellie was an unexpected joy. She so wants to be noticed that she is trying to dig herself out of her rebelish stage. What a fun read.

4.25/5⭐️

This is third in a sibling trilogy, and although they can be read alone, I recommend reading them in order.

Luke Edgewood has journeyed to the European island country of Skymar (fictional), where two of his sisters have met their matches, to work on a renovation project for an orphanage there. He meets Ellie St. Claire, the project manager, who unbeknownst to him, happens to be the youngest princess of the realm.

As these two are almost immediately attracted to each other and their relationship develops, it seems that their chance at happiness is doomed. She cannot abdicate her duties, he has a business and family awaiting him in the US.

I really enjoyed this story, but maybe not quite as much as its two predecessors, and honestly I’m not sure why. Luke is a one-in-a-million guy, Ellie is sweet and is working hard to restore her reputation from party girl to responsible royal, and Luke’s sisters provide loving support as well as some hilarious comic relief along the way.

Well-written and enjoyable trilogy. I recommend them all.

My sincere thanks to the author, NetGalley and Thomas Nelson for providing the free early arc of Loyally, Luke for review. The opinions are strictly my own.

This was my first experience with this family. An entertaining method of communication via text. Definitely a Hallmark movie style book with a smidgeon more fun. The movie quotes added so much, even those I was not familiar with. Delightful banter. A few heartwarming and heart stopping moments. Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I am so excited that we finally have a Luke book! The dynamic between Izzy, Penelope, Josephine and Luke is one of my favorite literary sibling relationships.
Luke Edgewood is a flannel-wearing small town American who makes his way to our favorite island, Skymar. After a disastrous not-so-meet-cute when he arrives at the airport, he is ready to get to work on the short-term renovation project he was hired for.
Elliana St. Claire, youngest daughter of the King and Queen of Skymar is doing her best to repair her tattered reputation and show everyone her past is well behind her. She is ready to step up as a working royal and oversee the construction project on the orphanage that is near and dear to her heart.
Getting to know more about Luke filled my heart and Ellie was a great match for him. The chemistry and banter between Luke and Ellie had me laughing and they were adorable together. I love the personal growth we see in the characters as they navigate life and their relationship. They help each other heal from their past trauma, overcome fears and encourage each other to just be who they are.
Another must read from Pepper Basham! I can’t get enough of the movie and book quotes and references in this series.

First off, if Luke Edgewood and Duchess Elliana St. Clare aka Elllie, star in a new HGTV remodeling home makeover show, I will willingly sign up for Hulu or whatever streaming services they land on. Take.My.Money
This is my first time reading Pepper Basham’s Skymar Series and the story was so well done! I do want to read her first two books in the Skymar series just to understand Luke’s sisters and get their backstory to understand their group texts (which are adorabs by the way). That’s one thing I did appreciate about the story was the sibling banter and companionship they had for one another. They were supportive and teasing in a special kind of sibling love!
The story definitely gives off Hallmark vibes and the characters even pokes jokes at it throughout the story. Yet, it wasn’t over the top with just the right amount of a sweet and thoughtful romance. Luke and Ellie are the perfect opposites attract romance trope.

Thank you so much NetGalley, Thomas Nelson, and Pepper Basham for allowing me to read the ARC of Loyally Luke in exchange for my honest review.

👩‍❤️‍👨 Friends to Lovers
🔔 Hallmark Chimes
🎭 Opposites Attract
🏡 Small Town
😘 Kissing Only

Princess Elliana St. Clare has lots of responsibilities and wants to prove to her parents and the people that she has grown up and is worthy of being a working royal. She meets Luke on one of her projects where he is hired to renovate an orphanage. Luke has no idea he’s friendly with a princess. She’s just Ellie to him. When he finds out she’s a royal, they agree that their relationship cannot move forward but they cannot contain the chemistry between them. One of their last days together gets caught by paparazzi and makes headlines that do not shine Ellie in a positive light. Luke, once again, shows how loyal he can be and shows up for the princess in a way no one has before. I loved the gruff American falling for a princess trope! This book was super cute and sweet!

I loved every book in the Skymar series, and this last installment is the icing on the cake! Luke and Ellie…a princess and a carpenter…are a truly endearing couple! They are literally from two different worlds, but their hearts were good and true. I loved that he brought the unexpected to her life, and that she added romance to his! All the books in this series feature texts and emails between Luke, his sisters and his cousin, and it’s been so much fun to watch those relationships, as well as their romantic relationships, evolve! I also love Skymar, this picturesque land with its colorful who characters who care about each other and their home. I’m sad to see this series end, to say goodbye to Skymar and its lovely residents! This is an uplifting book, and the whole series is sure to warm your heart.

This is the final book in a trilogy about siblings (...one might be a cousin?) who travel to the fictional country of Skymar, which is vaguely Scotland-adjacent but is its own country with its own royal family, and fall in love. Luke Edgewood heads to Skymar to help fix up some cabins and a castle/orphanage and attend his sister/cousin's wedding.

I was pleased that this book almost immediately fixed two of the things that bothered me about Positively, Penelope, the previous book in the trilogy--Luke says that he's from North Carolina, and Penelope refers to her boyfriend as Matt, not Matthias. I was quite pleased. Penelope continues to be a presence in this book via texting with Luke, and she annoyed me as much as she did in her own book. Fortunately, as I hoped, Luke himself isn't as annoying. He meets Ellie, who turns out to be Princess Elliana of Skymar. She's something like the fourth child of the king and queen, so probably won't inherit. Still, as a princess, her antics from three years before the start of the book haunt her as she tries to prove herself as a dependable, non-scandalous working member of the royal family.

Luke was definitely less annoying than Penelope, but Basham was a bit heavy-handed in portraying his manliness--raised with sisters (and a female cousin), Luke feels the need to be very masculine and doesn't want to go anywhere near girly-type movies or entertainment. When he finds himself falling for Ellie, he tries to distract himself by watching Rambo or Rocky or Mission: Impossible. Which, honestly, I don't hate as a concept. It's just that there are so many references to him thinking about "manly" movies as opposed to Hallmark-type movies that it's just way too much.

(ALSO. If you're shortening the name "Indiana Jones", you spell it Indy, not Indie. And also, there were a bunch of movies quotes in this book in such a way that even though I am very, VERY familiar with the movies, I managed to not pick up on the quotes until a character explicitly called it out.)

When it comes down to it, I think I got frustrated with this book because the characters tend to speechify with each other instead of having normal conversations. Everything is either banter or Very Deep Conversations in which people talk in ways that I don't think anyone has ever talked to each other. It's show vs. tell--Basham has the characters just say exactly what they want to convey instead of writing how people would actually talk about things. It's not that nobody would ever say any of these things; it's that they wouldn't say all of them, over and over throughout the book.

Also, talk of Ellie basically needing to be "redeemed" from her past, which honestly didn't seem THAT bad, gave me the ick.

THAT SAID. I actually really liked the plot of this! (Ditto for Positively, Penelope, now that I think about it.) She writes multiple tropes and handles them in a really good way. The conflict was totally organic and you could sympathize with pretty much everyone involved. Ellie has an Evil Ex, but he's not around much. There's some God talk in the book, but it seemed organic to the characters. I feel like Basham has a good feel for stories, but needs to work on writing characters that don't sound so clunky.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Loyally, Luke is supposed to be a stand-alone novel, but it references other characters and plots from Basham's other books. I was surprised this was an epistolary novel (use of emails and texts), and this style is not my reading style. Luke Edgewood goes to the fictional country of Skymar to complete a construction project and is distracted when he meets a beautiful woman who resembles Grace Kelly. Basham creates a close-proximity romance filled with humorous tropes.

I did not realize that this book was part of a series (I plan to read the rest of them) but this Rom com follows the story of Luke Edgewood MMC and Ellie St. Clare FMC.

What can I say- this story was charming and funny. The story often references Hallmark movies and HEA. Even with the references I can see how this could be one. Luke has no interest in finding romance despite pressures from his family. It's not until he has to work with Ellie whom he and her initially get off on the wrong foot - is overseeing the project that Luke is assigned to work on.

I'm not a fan of the third person POV for romance books and it took a bit to get through purely due to formatting.

If you are looking for a cute romantic comedy that has HEA then check this out!

A sweet, fun story. I wasn't sure how the text messaging would work, but it turned out to be fairly minimal in the story. The story takes place on the page. Readers meet Luke Edgewood and Elliana St. Clare. I did not read the prior books in the series, but that didn't slow down my ability to follow the characters and plot.

Themes of overcoming one's past mistakes, making difficult choices in life. Compromise.

[One note--The blurb threw me off-- as it's written in first person, but the story is in third (my preference).]

The synopsis for Loyally, Luke by Pepper Basham sounded exactly like a story I would love, but the execution fell flat.

Part of what didn’t work for me were the constant text threads with characters who weren’t part of the actual story. These texts didn’t always serve the plot and could have been omitted. The conversations in the text threads rarely felt like they would happen in real life.

The other part that didn’t work with me was the romance, particularly because the characters almost came off like caricatures rather than believable people. Luke had an obsession with being manly to the point where it made his character one dimensional and unlikeable.

The romance was also very surface-level. It was hard to believe these two were in love or would make such big life changes for one another after such a short time together; time that often wasn’t quality time.

I would only recommend this book to people who have read and enjoyed the first two books in the series. You might enjoy the text exchanges more because (I believe) they’re between characters from the previous stories.

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read an early copy. All opinions are my own.


2 out of 5 ⭐️⭐️

Luke Edgewood has no desire for romance. Call him a grump, but the last woman he fell in love with wanted him to change everything about himself. As a man with two sisters and a sister-like cousin, Luke feels perfectly at home in a woman’s world. He even puts up with references to Hallmark movies, happy endings, and all that gooey-gushy stuff women seem to crave. But when magical moments mean he must change who he is? No, thank you.

He'd rather stick to his small-town carpentry and renovation business. An occasional trip to Skymar, a small island kingdom across the pond, adds variety and spice to his life. And then he bumps into Grace Kelly (well, her look-alike) when he lands in Skymar. Miss Snooty accuses him of stealing her coffee (the barista made a mistake), and sparks fly.

Once he extricates himself from the disaster, he can face his next hurdle—renovating a quiet cabin in the mountains and bidding for a project at one of Skymar’s orphanages. Unfortunately, the project leader at the orphanage is Grace Kelly’s doppelganger.

What has Luke gotten himself into?

When Princess Elliana St. Clare, Duchess of Mara and the North Country, shows up to talk to the new contractor, she discovers the coffee thief. He’s also a Luddite—the only man in the kingdom of Skymar who stays off social media and doesn’t know her real identity. She can live with that. After spending three years in seclusion, Ellie knows she’s ready to return to her kingdom as a working royal. Her path to self-discovery has made her stronger, but as she learns more about Luke, she realizes traveling companions make the journey easier.

Not just any companion, but a handsome, kind, generous, loving, and incredibly spark-inducing companion. As a working royal, she has responsibilities to her people and her family.

What has Ellie gotten herself into?

Why I Loved This Book

Told through narration and epistolary texts between characters, Basham takes readers on a rollicking ride through the life of a royal. Filled with tongue-in-cheek romance tropes, Disney and Hallmark moments, and a self-centered villain, readers who love all things comedic and romantic will fall in love with Luke and Ellie.

Fans of Courtney Walsh and Emma St. Clair will love Loyally, Luke in this sparkling Cinderfella story.

Totally adorable just as I expected. After loving the two previous books in the Skymar series, this one at the top of my TBR and it did not disappoint! It’s completely charming with several laugh out loud moments and scenes that put a smile on my face throughout. A sweet and hilarious read!

I received an early copy of this as a member of the Launch Team but I also have pre-ordered my own copy for my keepers shelf. All thoughts are my own.

I confess that I was quite worried about this one... I made the mistake requesting a copy of Loyally, Luke without realizing it was actually book three of a series; a series I of course hadn't started yet. Still, I loved the sound of the blurb, so I decided to read the first book before this ARC to avoid spoilers. And surprise, surprise! I somehow didn't get along with the first book at all... The fact that it was actually Christian fiction took me by surprise, and I wasn't a fan of most of the characters. I did like Luke though, so I still had hope for this third book. And while I enjoyed Loyally, Luke slightly better than the first book, I've come to the conclusion that this author simply isn't for me.

First of all I have to stress that part of the issue most definitely has to do with the fact that Christian fiction and me usually don't get along, as I'm not a fan of religion in my stories. While I can't deny that it's not too overpowering in Loyally, Luke, it still was too much for me personally. I confess that had I known it was Christian fiction beforehand, I probably wouldn't have requested it... I guess that teaches me to investigate better before hitting that button. I do have to say that I really enjoyed the fictional Skymar setting and its descriptions really made it come alive for me. It made me wish I could visit or even move there; it sounds beautiful!

Like the first book, Loyally, Luke is part epistolary, although mostly in the form of texts this time around. Initially this was such a great touch, although it could be come a bit tedious over time as there is a LOT of this writing style incorporated into the plot. I did like the growing connection between Luke and Ellie, and their banter was great. I was less charmed by some of Luke's sisters and their meddling behavior; like in the first book, it was just way too much and really started to grate me. Certain aspects were also considerably repetitive... I mean, we get that they can't be together in the long run, but do we really have to read about it over and over and over?!

As for the characters... Like I said before, I mostly liked Luke and Ellie, but especially Luke's sisters were extremely frustrating. In fact, most of the background characters were so much easier to warm up to! I can't deny that the growing connection between Luke and Ellie was great though, but I could have done without the repetition and overdose of romance tropes. Also, how many times does Luke have to repeat turning to his manly movies and actions because he feels threatened by romance? It really got old fast.

As a whole, I did like Loyally, Luke better than the first book, but I won't be continuing this series. I've come to the conclusion that this author's writing simply isn't a good fit for me, and I will be leaving the Skymar visits up to readers that will appreciate it more. If you like Christian fiction, a royalty angle and lots of romance tropes, Loyally, Luke will be a great fit for you.

Authentically, Izzy was one of my top reads of 2023 and so, when I received the approval email from NetGalley for Loyally, Luke, I was ecstatic!

Luke and Ellie are just the cutest of main characters and I absolutely adored their witty banter and sweet romance, as well as their hearts for God, family, and children—especially orphans.

The story brimmed with small village charm, endearing characters, and heartfelt messages that kept me smiling throughout. And though the story did start off a little slow to me, it picked up around 37% and I found myself not wanting to put it down and at the end sad to say goodbye to Luke and Ellie (Pepper Basham, can we please have one more?!).

5 Stars -- I loved it!

Loyally , Luke
Pub Date: May 14
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Reading this book felt like watching a Hallmark favourite😍 while cosying up with ur blanket and hot cocoa. ☕
😌🤗😌🤗😌🤗

Elliana St. Clare Princess of Skymar, 👸🏼 Duchess of Mara and the North Country.
Luke Edgewood is an American carpenter and stonemason. 🪚
Both are from totally different and opposite worlds but fate put them together when he came to the village of Crieff to help fix up a castle which is an orphanage and which Ellie is the main overseer of the project.

Luke doesn't want to fall in love and Ellie is focusing on herself and on her work to get reinstated as a working royal. So any distractions would only complicate things but from the moment they met, there was an immediate spark and attraction they cannot possibly deny.
Would they be able to cross their different worlds and meet in the middle or is it doomed to end?

Get ready for a cosy romantic story where you will find your favourite troops such as:
Friends To Lovers 💘
Opposite Attracts😎
Workplace Romance 🪚👸🏼
Cinnamon Roll Hero 😇
Kissing only 💋

Loved this book it was light and simple and full of joy and hope and reading it felt like walking into a fairytale.
Luke Edgewood is one of the most amazing characters I've read recently and I really hope there are men like him out in the world.
I loved how the author showed us the characters from the previous 2 books and that they were mentioned properly in the story not just glimpses.
It was really lovely and I highly recommend it. ❤️❤️❤️
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Thank you so much to @netgalley and the publisher for the ARC of #LoyallyLuke in exchange for my honest review.


Xoxo 💋

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book as much as all of Pepper Basham's other books!

I LOVED this book!! I can't stop thinking about the incredible love story between these two characters. I would definitely recommend this book to others and read it again myself.

Luke Edgewood – the ultimate laid-back dude who's all about black coffee, flannel shirts, and chilling with his pups Chewy and Indie. Romance? Nah, not his thing. But when his sis ropes him into a gig in Skymar, she's convinced he's gonna find his happily ever after. But then he meets this total Grace Kelly look-alike who's equal parts annoying and intriguing. Oh, and did I mention she's a legit princess? Despite the royal roadblocks, sparks start flying as they team up to fix up an orphanage, and suddenly Luke's questioning everything he thought he knew about love.

Ellie and Luke totally rocked as the main characters in this book! They brought so much fun and excitement to the story. Luke's sarcasm? Seriously hilarious! And his connections with all the awesome women in his life – his sisters, cousin, and especially Ellie – are just the best.
And, Ellie? She's a total sweetheart. A princess on a mission to fix her reputation, she goes on this epic journey of self-discovery. And Luke's there every step of the way, cheering her on and helping her figure out who she really is. They're like the ultimate duo, and I couldn't get enough of them!

I gotta say, the sibling dynamic in this book is top-notch. The love and support between Luke and his sisters are just heart-melting. And those group chat conversations? Hilarious! However it might feel like the story jumps around a bit with all the text message exchanges, but it still kept me entertained.

What I loved most about this book is how real it felt. It doesn't try to be anything it's not – just a light-hearted romp filled with faith, hope, and a whole lot of laughs. It's like a cozy movie night with your besties, complete with popcorn and all the warm fuzzies.

This book is like a breath of fresh air – a sweet and heartwarming romance that'll definitely hit the spot for fans of Hallmark movies.