Good marriage-of-convenience story. Sebastian needs a wife, and his one attempt ended badly when he realized the woman he cared for was more interested in his crown than in him. Rather than try for a love match, he plans to pick someone who wants to be a queen from the leftovers of his brother's bride lottery and treat it as a professional relationship. So he picks a name from a hat and heads off to propose.

Breanna and her twin sister, Anastasia, are the daughters of wealthy and very controlling parents. The women have plans for their lives outside the advantageous marriages their parents want for them. Though Breanna is the younger of the two, she has the steel will and a plan to get them out from under their parents' thumbs. Those plans derail when Sebastian arrives with his proposal to marry Anastasia. Breanna, who is very protective of her sister, offers herself instead since the sisters are interchangeable according to their parents. This will enable Breanna to help Anastasia escape and pursue her dreams.

The first meeting between Sebastian and Breanna is a little awkward. Sebastian knows nothing about the woman he picked, and Breanna knows it. She is determined to save her sister and does a great job of making her point that she is an easy substitute for Anna. She believes that the length of a typical royal engagement will give her time to find a way out of the marriage so she can pursue her dreams. Imagine her shock when Sebastian states that their wedding will occur in three days!

Sebastian has a preconceived idea of what Breanna expects from their marriage and has no idea that all of his knowledge comes from her parents. The beginning of their married life is awkward because of it until they begin to get to know each other. Breanna is surprised to learn that Sebastian has been in training for his position since he was ten years old. She's horrified by how his father taught him that his life belongs to the country and that he doesn't rate a personal life. I enjoyed seeing her attempts to break him free of his self-imposed restraints. I liked Sebastian's protectiveness toward Breanna. He does a lovely job of standing up for her against her parents on their wedding day, shocking Breanna. She never felt like she mattered to anyone before that point.

I liked seeing Sebastian and Breanna get to know each other. Neither expected the sparks of attraction that flared between them, and each discovered that they wanted more from their marriage than just a royal partner. I laughed out loud when Breanna put her foot down and cleared Sebastian's schedule so he would have a vacation. I loved it when he overheard her talking to her sister about her dream honeymoon and immediately changed his plans to make hers a reality. The time they spent away gave them the chance they needed to explore their growing feelings.

They hit a bump in their road when Sebastian makes a boneheaded mistake regarding her hobby. His intentions were good, but the results were not what he had hoped. It takes honest conversation and looking at things from the other person's perspective to get past the hurt and anger. I loved his big moment at the end. It was emotional and sweet. The epilogue was good and showed Sebastian and Breanna a year later. I loved seeing the difference in their lives.

I detested Breanna's parents and their attitude towards their daughters. I hope they got exactly what they had coming to them.

The plot centers on Breanna, who volunteers to marry the king in place of her twin sister. Despite planning to escape the marriage, Breanna's attraction to the king, Sebastian, complicates things. Sebastian, focused on his duty to his people, finds himself challenged by Breanna to embrace both his roles as a man and a king. The book charming overall, despite some minor issues.

Heat Factor: I was into it until they went straight from the water/sandy beach into the bed and then I couldn’t even pay attention because FULL BLOWN HORROR how can you even think about sex with sand and salt everywhere!?

Character Chemistry: I don’t even care if it’s unrealistic to immediately demonstrate warm care and little sweet affection for your newly-met, marriage of convenience spouse, I LIKE IT

Plot: Breanna has spent her entire life trying to protect her twin sister, so when the king chooses her sister’s name from a hat to be the next queen, she volunteers as tribute

Overall: Aside from just being completely unable to get on board with the sex and a couple other small quibbles, I was very charmed by this book.

I took a break from royals books because I kept trying to find the same romantic energy as A Nordic King by Karina Halle and failing, but this title and premise snagged my attention on NetGalley, and here we are.

So, in fact this book doesn’t have the same angsty tension as A Nordic King, but it also doesn’t have a lot of the other elements I find exceptionally irritating about royalty romance. I mean, the king (Sebastian) is very stuck on what a burden it is to be the king, but he’s not looking for relief in the form of a normal person who is a breath of fresh air, and he already had his rebellion and realized the impact that had on his brother (presumably this was part of the first book in the series, which I have not read), so even though it’s a burden for him, he is also actively choosing the crown in order to protect the people he loves from the consequences of his failure to step up. Also the dark moment conflict isn’t about external forces or influences, and I appreciated that, because typically that manifests as a Contemporary Romance Runaway™ which is irritating as heck.

Our tale begins with Breanna and her twin sister, Annie, discussing how soon they can get away from their controlling parents. More troubling experience crumbs are dropped throughout the book, but immediately we understand that, although these young women have their own desires and passions, their extremely wealthy and influential parents control everything about their lives. Breanna might be willing to go it alone, but she’s unwilling to leave her sister behind, and Annie is so scared of what might happen when they’re on their own that she refuses to leave their gilded cage. Because of their sibling dynamic, when their father enters to tell them that Annie will be marrying the king, Breanna steps up to protect her sister yet again and volunteers to marry the king in her sister’s place.

Historically this storyline would irritate me so much, because I have very little patience for people who martyr themselves and act like they have no other choice when, in fact, they are making a choice. I honestly thought that would be the case here, but it wasn’t because Breanna is pretty clear-eyed about the choices that she’s making. At no point does she ever consider that she could just leave Annie to her own life choices, but even that pulls through for the narrative because Hyland’s character development of Breanna includes so many breadcrumbs about Breanna never putting herself first in any context—there’s one moment when she can’t even tell him what her favorite meal is—that it’s clear she’s made this part of her personality rather than being a martyr. Even as she fights for everyone around her to pursue their own dreams and happiness, she is completely unaware that she has no idea what her own dreams are or what would truly make herself happy. It was a good character development for the self-sacrificing heroine archetype.

For his part, Sebastian is reeling from the consequences of his recent life choices, namely, he’s doubled down on his duty to the crown after a wild year of rebellion caused hardship for his younger brother, and he’s also reeling from realizing that his fiancée—chosen by his father but who he also fell in love with—sees him as nothing more than the crown and wouldn’t want him without his title. Ergo, he has decided that as part of his duty to the crown, he should just pick a name from the same group of women that entered the contest to win his brother’s hand because at least he knows they want to be royal, and there won’t be any illusions about what’s expected.

Little does he realize that neither Annie nor Breanna were the ones entering their names in the drawing. In fact, much of the relationship conflict between Sebstian and Breanna boils down to Sebastian making sweeping statements or agreements that he later feels he can’t renege on, even though he never discussed those agreements with Breanna in the first place to get her thoughts about their situation. While some might find this obnoxious (probably Erin of five years ago would have found this obnoxious), I think it tracks just in terms of people naturally centering themselves and not pausing to consider other points of view. In combination with the fact that Breanna and Sebastian don’t even know each other, and thus barely have enough emotional intimacy to have a real conversation, it works very well in this context to hold the tension and develop the relationship to the point where our protagonists feel they can be real with each other.

In terms of relationship development, I really liked that this story included a couple marrying for convenience—including one marrying against her own wishes—but at the same time they both internally agreed to accept that this was their decision and to make the best of things. Therefore, they’re willing to lean on each other or show small displays of support and affection even though they don’t know each other well. In retrospect, this probably isn’t an entirely reasonable way to present a relationship between two people who met three days before their wedding, but at the same time it feels really good that, even with everything else going on between them and around them, they feel like their spouse is someone to rely on for support and care. There’s something to be said for mistrustful strangers to lovers, but the charm of this narrative definitely rests in both protagonists’ willingness to care, even without reason to do so. Also it ramps up the tension nicely as Sebastian drops kisses in her hair, or Breanna strokes his cheek, only for both to wish it wouldn’t end there.

Okay, so if you’ve made it this far, you’re probably wondering what my quibbles are. In the first place, as I mentioned, there is absolutely nothing hot about being so hot for each other that you don’t even rinse off the saltwater and sand before falling into bed. I asked Ingrid and Holly, and they fully agreed with me, so I don’t know who thinks this is sexy, but whoever it is, I’m sorry but I am internally judging you. Sand in the bed! Just everything sensory about salt water from the grit to the way it makes your skin feel to the taste…just no. Wet hair all over the pillow. I am cringing so hard. Ugh.

Secondly, and this was another distraction during the sex, why would a twenty-something virgin whose dad paid off her dates to leave her and who has no medical need for it have an IUD? Like. I know that category romances are short on available word count, but I don’t get it. I asked Holly and Ingrid about this one, too, and they were like, maybe she has a medical condition or maybe she didn’t know about her dad paying off the guys? But she found out about her dad buying off this guy in high school and specifically says she pretty much gave up on dating after that because it felt like all the guys just wanted the payout to leave her, and there wasn’t even the smidgen of a throwaway comment about anything that might call for birth control that’s not baby related. No weird acne hormone treatment, no overly heavy periods, nothing. Like, it’s nice to have a convenient excuse for not worrying about birth control during the sex, but also make it make sense.

Beyond that, I think my thoughts stem mostly from category romance-related issues. The narrative is very tightly focused on Breanna and Sebastian. There are interesting threads brought up with respect to Breanna’s sister and her struggles as well as Sebastian’s mother and her relationship to his father and the expectations of the crown, but those characters and threads are underdeveloped. I chalked it up to, well, we’re working with 200 pages, we can’t do everything. Like. This series is called Royals in the Headlines, but the press barely factors, and where the heck are all their servants and security personnel? Anyway, it’s interesting to note the choices authors make when telling a story, but I wouldn’t call any of this stuff dealbreakers.

Except maybe the sex. But it’s also fun to be horrified by a book and be able to talk about it with your friends, so that’s also a win.

After a spate of relatively disappointing category romance and also disappointing royal romance, this one really did hit the spot.

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.

This review is also available at The Smut Report.

Twin switch and a king...

Breanna takes her twins place and in a marriage of convenience, marries Sebastian.
Its an arrangement. A slow burn and both Breanna and Sebastian are dutiful and play by the book.
Recommend.

Oh Harlequin publishing, you guys find the best authors who write wonderfully sweet romantic stories. I loved this sweet royal marriage of convenience. Breanna is so selfless and all King Sebastian has known is duty to the crown.

Finding their path towards one another wasn’t quick and easy, but Breanna’s persistence showed Sebastian there is more to life than the crown. 💙💙💙. If you like sweet, closed doors and royal stories. This one is for you!

𝗧𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽𝗲𝘀:
💙Royals
💙Marriage of Convenience
💙Forced Proximity
💙Slow Burn
💙Closed door

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book was ok. As it is 'just' a series Harlequin, I wasn't expecting much and didn't get much, but it was still entertaining. It's not the first in the series, so there were some things that would have made more sense if I'd read the previous book.

For a Harlequin “Royal” theme, I don’t think I ever read a Hero selecting his heroine from a Lottery – not that heroine won anyway, but she was still selected as his Queen. 🤷

So Hero needs to get married and select a Queen to take the throne. Heroine has an identical twin and sacrifices herself to protect her from their grasping parents who covet aristocratic titles. Anyway, this is your typical marriage of convenience trope with a grumpy Hero and a sunshine heroine.

I was given an advanced copy but NetGalley and Publisher for an honest review.

So this book... what can I say about it.

Arranged marriage, grumpy sunshine, king and a commoner. It hits all the tropes right on the head. For that I commend it. But I did find it getting a little boring right in the saggy middle. Other than that, and the confusing references to the first book which I did not read, I enjoyed it.