I have thoroughly enjoyed each of Jayci Lee's books and That Prince is Mine might be my favorite yet. It's so fun and I loved the characters. Lee writes great dialogue and banter! Loved it!

This book is absolutely frivolous, in the most delightful way. It is a delicious fairytale - literally. The food scenes made me want to go get some Korean food immediately, every time.

I did get annoyed with Emma's steadfast seriously bad take on love and marriage. And the entire book is a constant miscommunication trope, which is not a favourite of mine by any means. But I appreciated the alternating POV, so you fully know how much both of them are making assumptions and being daft. And while I would definitely classify this as a romcom with a dash of spice, as opposed to a straight up spicy book, that dash is HOT.

Would definitely recommend if you enjoy the "royalty falls in love with commoner who doesn't know they are royalty" fairytale trope, and well described food scenes. It does kind of border on "insta-love", which I can only take so much of. I did find some bits frustrating, but any time there was a blow up there was a pretty quick turn around... so we never wallow in major misunderstanding for long. So, more of a 4 star than a 5 star for me largely due to personal preferences... but I will continue to check out Jayci Lee's work, and I did very much enjoy this.

This book hooked me in from the first chapter. I loved the character development and how the story progressed.

I'm not normally a fan of royal romances. As I don't like the whole normal wants to be a princess trope. However this one was the complete opposite. We get a prince who's determined to marry for love and ends up falling for the one girl who wants nothing to do with a prince or being a princess. So needless to say I loved this one more than I thought I would.

⭐⭐⭐.5/5 - I've been loving all of the royal romances lately!! And I'm loving that this wasn't a prince of England but rather another country that would be flexible with a mixed heritage marriage. (There are very few of those going around in today's day and age, really!)

THOUGHTS:
- Made me want to learn traditional Korean cuisine because my mouth watered the entire time I was reading!
- I had no idea until recently that in some cultures - arranged marriages were still a thing? So as I was reading - it was fun to immerse myself again in a culture I'm not intimately familiar with.

**Thank you to St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin & NetGalley for the advanced reader copy. I received this book for free, but all thoughts are my own. – SLR 🖤

Thanks to Netgalley & St. Martin's Press for access to this E-ARC! This was really cute. I enjoyed the characters & the pacing. Will definitely read more from this author.

I am sure some people are going to love this book, but I just could not get through it. I found the two main characters lackluster and was just not interested in their story. I really liked the incorporation of Korean culture into the book, and felt like I learned a lot from it. Unfortunately, I could not finish it.

🌟🌟🌟🌟

Prepare to be swept off your feet in "That Prince is Mine" by Jayci Lee! This delightful romance takes you on a journey filled with humor, heart, and unexpected twists. Emma Yoon, a love-averse Korean royal court cuisine instructor, finds herself in a whirlwind of chaos when rival matchmakers threaten her godmother's reputation and her dreams of opening a culinary school. Enter Michel Aubert, a charming professor and prince in disguise, who is determined to prove to Emma that love and happily ever after can be theirs. Jayci Lee crafts a captivating story that balances the allure of royalty with the everyday struggles of finding love and following one's dreams. Emma and Michel's chemistry sizzles on the page, and their journey from strangers to soulmates is both heartwarming and swoon-worthy. What sets this romance apart is its witty banter, relatable characters, and vibrant Los Angeles setting. Lee skillfully explores themes of duty, responsibility, and the search for true love in a world filled with expectations.

I love that there is finally a story with a Korean female main character! I snatched this e-book instantly. Which is why, I'm sorry to say, I'm disappointed that this story ended up not being for me. I so badly wanted to connect to the main characters. But I couldn't & I ended up DNF'ing the story fairly early on.

Please do not let my review deter you from giving "That Prince is Mine" a read. You may thoroughly enjoy this romance more than I did. So, give this cute romance a read.

STORY LIKES
⭐⭐⭐

SPICE
-

RECOMMEND
💳 yes

Disclosure: I do not rate lower than 3⭐s. Based on my understanding, any rating less than 3⭐ ends up hurting the author's promotability and income - especially for indy authors.

Thank you NetGalley and the Publisher for giving me the opportunity to read & review Jayci Lee's "That Prince is Mine" in advance.

Michel is looking for a woman to be not only his queen, but the love of his life. Emma is going to let her Aunt match her up with the right guy, until she sets eyes on Michel. Now only one problem he’s a prince and she’d have to give everything she dreamed of up.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

An enjoyable and sweet romance. It was a great pallet cleanser between heavier books and I very much enjoyed the culinary aspect to the story. I look forward to reading more from this author.

As far as romance books go, That Prince is Mine is fairly par for the course. The characters are likeable and the dialogue is smart, but the storyline itself is somewhat predictable. This is a fun beach read or a fun book to read to de-stress. The steamy scenes could be a little steamier. Overall, I enjoyed the book and would likely recommend it to others. 4 out of 5 stars.

Thank you to Net Galley for this ARC!

Ahhhh I am so excited to have gotten my hands on this ARC!!! As an Asian American girl who grew up in Los Angeles (in Koreatown, no less), I c ould not have imagined a more fun premise -- it gave me so much nostalgia for all the major touristy spots and all the food in the city I called home.

Now, I have a sense of what initial criticism or hesitation might be, given recent backlash I've been hearing about for other Asian-authored female protagonist books. Our male love interest is white and a royal - colonialism comes back to haunt us again. But, can I just put this out there: as a little Asian girl growing up in America, why can't I have the dream of marrying Prince Harry that all my other classmates had? I think time and time again, representation needs diversity - and that means diversity of a mixed cast too! Just like I could never imagine myself a singer or politician, I also could never have imagined myself a princess. This book brings the same fairytale to life! I'll add in the caveat that we are always excited about half-Asian/half-white female protagonists (looking at To All The Boy's I've Loved Before or The Summer I Turned Pretty), despite the fact that their cultures are often not featured prominently.

Because of our main character's career, the emphasis on details surrounding food felt very natural, in a way that can be difficult to capture in an Asian romance, where authors feel pressured to represent culture through food. I also felt that the chemistry between our love interests, while being somewhat fast, was genuine chemistry that took me along for the ride. I understood, too, the main plight of our prince's secret identity; why Emma might be incredibly resistant to moving to a completely different country. And, as a child of divorce, I understood the representation of her hesitation about a love based solely on passion -- though I would've appreciated a more thoughtful exploration, given the amount of times the same few words and sentiments are repeated over and over.

One of the few weaknesses to me was the writing of dialogue. This stood out to me at the start of the novel, when it felt like every single sentence of dialogue needed to be followed by a long phrase of physical gesture (nodding, sighing, etc.) and was so chock-full of "descriptive verbs" that the words simply weren't flowing. And I appreciate the time and effort it took to choose these verbs; someone once told me that verbs comprise of a large percentage of meaning in the English language; but sometimes you want dialogue to blend in to the page, for it to have a natural rhythm and sound similar to an actual conversation. Similarly, the banter between Emma and our Prince often fell a little flat. There is one moment when the two are joking about learning each others' "favorites", like a favorite song, and they are playful flirting and punching one another. I fully did not grasp the chemistry or the laughter here. Maybe I'm just dense, but their conversations didn't have the wittiness or reflect their natural chemistry in a way that made sense to me. Finally, the amount of times that we hear about Emma's sultry voice or our Prince's "husky" voice is just 100 times too many. Way, way too much of the same adjective. It's time for us to focus on different attributes, please!

All in all, I absolutely loved and speed-read through this entire book. It just hit all those right pieces for me, and I do always love a good he-falls-first trope. 4.5 stars with a 2.5 for spice (a lot of horniness that resulted in mostly kissing, in fairness.) I loved the way the author has paced this book, what details she's chosen to include from peeing to avoid a UTI to the acknowledgment of the slight insanity of the third act fight.I wish there was a future book with Sophie and Gabriel - just imagine the possible yearning ahh!!

This was a super cute premise and the writing was strong. I enjoyed the escapism of the plot and thought the characters were well developed, even if I didn’t like them very much. The story stays at the surface level and because of that there is repetition in the themes and plot points. I thought this could have been shorter and still achieved the story arc and HEA. If you enjoy suspending belief and getting wrapped up in a bit of a fairytale, this is for you!

Emma Yoon, a Korean Royal Food Culinary teacher, begins going on ‘matseons’ (blind dates) to find a marriage partner she will be compatible with. Enter Michel Chevalier, a charming, USC professor who is also secretly Prince Michel of Rouleme. Emma’s tries to convince herself they are incompatible but their magnetic attraction and ease together say otherwise.

This was a cute read. I really would have liked to see Michel and Emma’s relationship more detailed. There was a lot of focus on side characters that could have easily been fleshed out in its own book rather than being as detailed in this one. I think the racial differences and racism concerns could have been more meaningful if it wasn’t just thrown in towards the end.

Overall it was a quick, fun read. As a Korean American myself, it was enjoyable to read about a Korean, female protagonist be the lead in her own ‘fairytale’.

I love a great royal story. I enjoyed reading Michel and Emma’s story from beginning to end. From revealing that he is a prince to everything that entails, it made the story simply adorable.

This was a good book and I really enjoyed getting to know the characters. I would recommend this for anyone looking for a lighthearted read.

Overall, I enjoyed the plot, in terms of a royal romance. The book focuses on Emma, a Korean Royal Court cuisine instructor, and Michel, a visiting professor at USC who happens to be the crown prince of a European nation. Emma is also looking for a husband to help her business and that of her professional matchmaking godmother. Taking a break from dating men that are "compatible" with her on paper, Emma dates Michel to get him out of her system. But Michel is also looking for someone to marry for love otherwise he will have an arranged marriage.

I enjoyed the story overall, and I thought each of the characters had an interesting backstory. Since there was so much information on Emma, I would have appreciated a bit more insight into Michel's story than just his basic background. The characters were definitely unique though, and I enjoyed reading about a different side of them.

For a book that was clearly intended for a mature audience, I felt like the writing didn't reflect it. The writing felt too juvenile for the plot it was telling. The characters seemed only to have basic thoughts, and I was confused how Michel believed Emma was the one for him after just one date. However, when I put that aside, I really did enjoy the book. One of my favorite parts was definitely reading about Korean food and culture, as well as Emma's passion for it. It was just so obvious how important that was to her character, and it really seemed genuine.

This was a good book, and I would rate it 4/5 stars, just because I wanted a little more from the characters. I would probably recommend if you're just looking for a light read though.

Thank you to netgalley for giving me an arc in exchange for my honest review. Emma a korean culinary teacher and Michel a visiting professor/ secret prince. Emma is also looking for a husband to appease her Matchmaking godmother. But michel and Emma and up having instant love and connection so they decide to date while michel is in town for two months. My favorite parts of the book was reading all about Korean food and Emma’s passion for it. I also loved Sophie and Gabriel’s side story. What annoyed me is that Michel just needs to tell Emma the truth, especially because she is honest with everything up front, but that’s how all romcoms work. All in all it was a fun read.

Although this was a nice fluffy palate cleanser after reading some heavy books, it was just ok. It’s not something I’m going to remember or go out of my way to recommend when someone is asking for book ideas

Such a cute book by Jayce Lee. I absolutely love all of her books, they are just the perfect feel good romance!