Review of modern romance How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole, and a holiday gift for you

 

When I reviewed Alyssa Cole's book How to Catch a Queen I complained that the heroine was way too good for the manchild hero.  How to Find a Princess,  Cole's next book in her Runaway Royals series, features love interests who are much better matched.  In fact, one of the most interesting features of this book is that Makeda and Beznaria are very similar to each other in their strengths, which are also their weaknesses.  They both love to help others -- to they extent that they both like to force their help on people who don't want it.  Cole could have gone farther in exploring what it was like for each of them to confront someone whose annoying traits are exactly the same as their own annoying traits.  

The issue of the similarity of the characters made the love story somewhat unbelievable to me. I subscribe to the rule that you tend to be put off by people who are most similar to you.  (I know I am.  If you're an ultra-organized over-achieving introvert who loves to write smut about naked sex slaves, sorry, we are probably not a match.) 

Cole did a great job with Makeda as an adult child of an alcoholic/mentally unstable mother, and exploring the reasons that she always needs to be in charge and be helpful.  It was a joy to see Beznaria being nice to her, and Makeda learning to accept someone being nice to her.  Beznaria is not as well developed a character, although I did like how her internal experience as a person with attention deficit disorder was described, and how having ADD was a strength not a weakness.

SPOILERS HERE, FOR HOW TO FIND A PRINCESS AND GAME OF THRONES:  

My main issue with How to Find a Princess is that the last three pages should have been twenty pages, at least.  I believe it ended with Makeda and Beznaria being cousins, but it wasn't entirely clear.  If so, ick, and will that lead to a Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryan Game of Thrones-like issue?  

One other thing about Cole as a writer: she's hilarious, and I would love to see her lean in to her comic genius.  My favorite line in the book: "Algernon Shropsbottomshireburrough, pronounced Smith, was both."  

A GIFT FOR MY READERS:

Today is Thursday, December 16, 2021.  For the next four days my smutty, dark dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames, is free on Kindle.  If you love dark erotica that has a well-written plot and actual character development, this book is for you.