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Saturday, November 24, 2012

Novel Review: The Royal Pain (Alaskan Royal Family, #2) by MaryJanice Davidson


Genre: Adult Contemporary Romance
Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp. (Brava Books)
Spoilers?: No/Very Minor.

Goodreads Synopsis:

 In a world nearly identical to ours, the North won the Civil War, Ben and JLo got married, and everyone dresses well to attend the Grammys. Oh, and Russia never sold Alaska to the U.S. Instead, Alaska is a rough, beautiful country ruled by a famously eccentric royal family, including oldest daughter, Princess Alexandria, whose acid wit and bad case of insomnia have turned her into a tabloid darling, a palace problem, and overall...

The Royal Pain
PMarine biologist Dr. Shel ("Never Sheldon") Rivers has a problem. Some princess expects him to wait on her, hand and dimpled foot. His boss is taken with the royal redhead -- brunette, whatever, it's not like he keeps track of that stuff -- and nobody realizes that he just wants to be left alone in his lab. All alone. All the time. Weekends, holidays -- it's all good.

Now here's Miss Royalpants, insisting that he escort her around the marine institute, explain what he s doing, kiss her until her toes curl -- no, wait, that was his idea. She's not even apologetic about being born into a royal family! Says it's his problem to overcome, not hers. Which leaves him with one option: to kiss her again. And again. And...

So she's nothing like he expected. In fact, Dr. Rivers can see that this fantastic, exasperating woman has problems no princess should ever have to deal with. And he has an idea to help her get some much-needed sleep. Of course, it involves getting very, very tired beforehand, but if she's up to it, then so is he...

In this delightfully madcap sequel to The Royal Treatment, the Baranov family is back and as unpredictable as ever, and a prickly princess and cranky Ph.D. are about to discover that love conquers attitude every time!

Available on Amazon.

Review:

The third book in this series was my favorite (so far), but this one was still very good. Same Davidson style, different couple, great romance. Pretty much the same things I like about all of the Davidson books I’ve read so far.
The Royal Pain is about Alex, one of the daughters in the royal family, going to the U.S. and meeting a biologist, Dr. Shel Rivers.
This book had a bit more serious emotional stuff than most of Davidson’s books, and I think I would have liked more focus on it. Alex has insomnia, caused by her part in an attack on her family, and she’s not dealing with it very well. And, while there is some focus as well as the resolving of the issue, I would have liked more. There isn’t usually so much depth, or trauma, or anything very serious in Davidson’s books, which is okay, but I would actually kind of like more.
Alex takes the same route as Davidson’s other characters, hiding her feelings behind humor, and I guess my problem in this case, was that it didn’t seem all that honest or believable. I mean, I enjoyed the book, and I liked Alex, and I like humor and understood why and when a person is using it to hide other things, but sometimes there should be actual serious talk, and there wasn’t enough of that in this book. Alex is a bit more cynical and sarcastic, I think, because of what she’s gone through, and I would have liked more focus on that, as opposed to Davidson’s typical humor-focused style.
But, again, I did like this book. It’s fun, funny, easy to get through, I really enjoyed the romance between Alex and Shel. I liked seeing the other characters, and am interested in finding out how her brother met his wife in the first book. One character that I really enjoy all of the interactions with is Edmund, the King’s, um, assistant, secretary, or whatever. He’s very straightfaced, keeps his expression and his words unemotional, even when you can tell that he’s being sarcastic or is annoyed, and he knows just about everything. He was in the last book as well, and I just kind of love him. Also, the youngest brother, Nicholas, I find really interesting, and want to know more about. Well, and the brother Alex. I want to know their stories, as well.
So, while this one was not my favorite, I still really enjoyed it, and look forward to reading Davidson’s other books.

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