Alyssa Cole's A Prince on Paper, the third novel in her Reluctant Royals series, is brimming with emotion, humor, and sensuality. It's a sweet, engaging story, the kind of thing that might happen in a mythical place like Camelot or Florin, all wrapped up in a contemporary romance — though in this case, our fictional countries are called Thesolo and Liechtienbourg ... A downside: Cole's world-building is almost too believable. I searched for Thesolo, dreaming of a week's vacation, hanging out with friends, old and new, or at least playing One True Prince on my phone for hours. But alas, like Camelot, I couldn't find a roadmap — or the game — online. And believe me, I looked.
Cole has a lot of fun with the luxury and decadence of the settings in A Prince on Paper and plenty of palaces, private jets and other trappings of wealth play into the escapist tone of the story ... With Johan, Nya doesn’t have to hide. And with Nya, Johan doesn’t have to dissemble. Their no-holds-barred honesty with each other is shocking compared to all the wheels-within-wheels manipulations surrounding them, and that’s exactly what makes it so sweet and satisfying. Johan puts all his masks aside while Nya steps out of the shadows, and they meet in the middle in a love that’s not a gamble or a game but a reward for their courage and trust.
Dear Alyssa Cole,
Once again you have been blessed by the cover gods. But better than that, the inside of the book lives up to the promise of that beautiful cover. A Prince on Paper was lovely ... The female friendships are strong, the masculinity is non-toxic and consent matters, always. The sex is creative, hot and intimate ... There are a number of queer characters and I appreciated the representation there as well. I won’t say more because that heads into spoiler territory. ... Perhaps the final conflict didn’t completely work for me – I got a little lost in their argument – and I personally didn’t find the emoji euphemisms to be all that sexy but they were small issues in an otherwise very happy reading experience.
