Royal Protocol by Christine Flynn (SSE 1471)

Reviewed by ellysoar on August 11th, 2008, 7:44pm

by Christine Flynn

Format: Print Books

Series: Silhouette Special Edition

Harrison Monteque and Gwen Corbin are two key players in the drama unfolding in the imaginary country of Penwyck. The king has taken ill for some weeks and been replaced by his twin brother and now one of the heirs apparent to the throne (there are twins in the family) has been kidnapped. The queen must step up and make some crucial decisions about an alliance which needs to be negotiated and signed and a dinner party being thrown, but she's emotionally not in the proper condition, so she appoints Gwen, her lady in waiting, to be her liaison. Harrison Monteque, one of the 4 men forming the king's Royal Elite Team, is the man with whom she must liaise. Despite being completely run ragged by all that is going on, Harrison and Gwen still find time to get to know one another a bit...

I need to disclaim that based on past experience, I was pretty confident going into this that this book wouldn't be a keeper for me, so if you do like these kinds of books you're opinion will undoubtedly be different. What worked for me in this book was all the little details about what it takes to run a kingdom – I particularly liked the references to the queen having to review every piece of silverware before the party and the whole scene in planing the seating arrangement. Unfortunately what didn't work for me as well was the whole romance. I really admired the first chunk of the book for keeping the romance as secondary focus only because it was so clear that these are not ideal circumstances for falling in love or kissing or bonding, etc. But in the second half of the book, of course, the focus is switched to the romance (and I admit that it was necessary as you can't have a HEA without a kiss or two) but nothing in the plot had changed to make that seem realistic so it just didn't. I mean the heroine is able to say that last time she fell in loe with her (late) husband it also took less than a week, but the hero had no such backstory and in fact in his late 40s never seemed to even have had a serious relationship....so in other words it felt rushed. I almost would've preferred to see them not get together...All these flaws though I attribute to the nature of the fake royalty series – the author isn't allowed to resolve anything, she is stuck within the confines of the dictated plot...but honestly I am sick of series books where the plot is continued in the next related book to try to hook you into buying it too – to combat that I just disengage and could care less whether the prince gets rescued, etc., etc.