I don't generally read contemporary romance but people have been raving about this book. I've also liked Alyssa Cole's historical romances so I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did.
I laughed out loud to see that this story starts with a variation on the Nigerian Prince email scam. Naledi receives an email claiming that she may be the long lost betrothed of a prince of an African country. Now if she's only send all the necessary information to establish her identity.....
There are many places where this book could have easily gone from entertaining to annoying. The author did a great job with keeping the mystery/suspense up but allowing pieces of the puzzle to be revealed in a natural way instead of dragging out conflicts.
There is a lot going on in this book.
- There is the Prince and the Pauper aspect as Thabiso tries to live as a normal person for a week. He gains insights on how he's been treating all the "little people" in his life.
- Naledi is having to deal with white male colleagues who use her for grunt work in their lab. Any time she speaks up for herself she is afraid of being labeled a "difficult black woman." I like the way another woman in the department was eventually able to stand up for her.
- Naledi has a rich friend who overruns any boundaries Naledi tries to set up but who she knows cares about her.
- Then there are the mysteries of why her parents ran away from Africa with her and what is the new illness that appearing in Thabiso's country.
That's all without adding in the romance aspect.
I'd recommend this book for anyone who likes romance books. It is the start of a series. Somewhere in this series I want a book about what happened with Thabiso's assistant. She travels with him to the U.S., starts a whirlwind romance with a woman she meets on Tinder, has some sort of bad break up that she refuses to talk about, and then heads back to Africa with Thabiso and Naledi. There's way more to that story than the teasing bit we saw in this book.
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This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story