My Review of How to Catch a Queen by Alyssa Cole

 

 

I rarely read contemporary romance, because the power dynamic I find so enticing in my favorite smut is just unpleasant when set in today's world.  Nevertheless, a good romance is a good story, and I enjoy a good story.

How to Catch a Queen by Alyssa Cole is a pretty good story, although I found it hard to get into at first.  I couldn't tell if it was being deliberately silly -- with its adult heroine whose one goal in life is to become a literal queen, its poor little rich boy hero who I just want to smack some sense into (and not in a sexy way), and its setting in a palace in a fictional country in Africa that is a combination of Eddie Murphy's home in Coming to America (1 and 2 --both are delightful) in its simplicity, Wakanda in its openheartedness, the moors of Wuthering Heights in its dysfunction, and the Oceania of 1984 in it's absolute erasure of inconvenient recent history.  

I never quite bought into the love story.  The chemistry between Shanti, the driven, smart, wise, and farseeing heroine, and Sanyu, the underachieving hero who has to be led by the nose to meet his responsibilities, felt forced.  I get that Sanyu works out a lot so he's hot, plus he's a king, but he's such an utter manchild.  I kind of would have preferred if they had stuck with Shanti's original understanding, that they would work together as a couple for the betterment of the country but not expect love.

That said, the book has a lot going for it.  A realpolitik understanding of the role of the IMF in developing countries, a lot of great supporting characters that I would have liked to have seen more of, like Shanti's overworked guard and a nasty librarian Shanti has to get along with, and world-building that is all-encompassing even if a bit Disney-ish. I wanted the book to be something that it isn't, but I enjoyed it.