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The Swedish Prince (Royal Romance, #1)

Karina Halle

Start date: April 20, 2018

Finish date: April 26, 2018

Discussion: Buddy Reads

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What Members Thought

Mar 22, 2018 Cyle rated it really liked it

Shelves: romance, contemporary, mature, royalty

Oh Karina Halle, how much I adore her and her creative and beautiful done stories. They either hit the heartstrings or make me all hot and bothered. I've been a die-hard fan since the Experiment in Terror series and it's always exciting to see which direction she takes with a new series/book.

The Swedish Prince follows Maggie, who has been hit with such a devastating loss, her parents were murdered and left behind their children, which Maggie has become their new Guardian. She leaves school to ta Oh Karina Halle, how much I adore her and her creative and beautiful done stories. They either hit the heartstrings or make me all hot and bothered. I've been a die-hard fan since the Experiment in Terror series and it's always exciting to see which direction she takes with a new series/book.

The Swedish Prince follows Maggie, who has been hit with such a devastating loss, her parents were murdered and left behind their children, which Maggie has become their new Guardian. She leaves school to take care five siblings and work her butt off to make ends meet as working at a hotel. When Maggie runs into the very naked and then later the very "drunk" handsome hotel guest, she decides to help him out by letting him sleep it off at her home. Soon Maggie connects with this beautiful man, who eventually she comes to find out is "THE" Swedish Prince Viktor. Their connection is instant but with how different their worlds are, Maggie and Viktor navigate their romantic world wind relationship and the ups and downs of being connected to a royal heir.

Maggie is a hardworking, dedicated, loving, and unselfish young twenty three year old. She gives up everything to take care of her family. Not realizing she is in a way trying to be a mother, when her family just wants their sister. She goes through a lot of highs and lows with her family, dealing with loss of all kinds. But when she meets Viktor, he opens her up to explore something she hasnt had in a long time, someone who cares for her and understands what shes gone through.

Viktor is suffering from the loss of his brother, it was tragic and sudden. It also made Viktor the heir to the throne and puts so much pressure so soon after his loss, that it becomes to much. Luckily he is allowed a breather, and that takes place in California when his care breaks down on his way to LA. He meets Maggie and she just gets him, she doesn't care about his title, money or anything else but just being with him. But Viktors reality is a challenge and something that Maggie inst sure she can handle.

Overall this was one of my favorite of Halle's, she really opened my eyes to the pressure of being a royal heir, as well as the reality of everyday Joe's and Jane's like Maggie go through just to get by. The romance is sexy as heck and Viktor and Maggie have such an intense connection that I'm surprised they didn't burst in to flames with the sex they had, dang it was hot! My favorite little tidbits besides the romance was the Swedish endearments, my sister married a swede and I always found the language exciting and so awesomely unique. I highly recommend this story and I'm hoping that maybe we get some of the fun secondary characters story too, like Magnus and King Aksel. ...more

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Oct 21, 2019 ✨ tweety ✨ rated it liked it

Shelves: romance, read-in-english, multi-pov, slow-romance, contemporary-romance, 2019, slow-burn, audiobook

No. No. No. This is what I probably thought while listening to the audio book of The Swedish Prince. Though the premises may look nice on paper, they aren't, actually. Truth be told, this book was too long and too boring for my taste. And it saddens me because I like this author and I know that she can do much better than this.

The story starts with our main female character, Maggie, that is drinking with her friend. She receives a call that changes her life: her parents are dead, they were kille No. No. No. This is what I probably thought while listening to the audio book of The Swedish Prince. Though the premises may look nice on paper, they aren't, actually. Truth be told, this book was too long and too boring for my taste. And it saddens me because I like this author and I know that she can do much better than this.

The story starts with our main female character, Maggie, that is drinking with her friend. She receives a call that changes her life: her parents are dead, they were killed. So Maggie has to fly back to California and give up her studies at NYU. One year later, she is taking care of her brothers and sisters and the house and works as a maid in a hotel. During her shift, she catches one of the guests naked. It's a big guy, and she can't help but look at his cock, which she seems to think over and over again for hours after the accident. Now, if we were in Maggie's place, of course we would think about what we saw too, but it seemed that she couldn't think about something else and move on. Blah. Starting from this, I didn't think I would like her personality, and I was right as the book moved along.

My main issue is not only with the story but with the main female character as well. Maggie is 23, she has to give up her dream to become a journalist to take care of her family, now that her parents are dead. Ok, this seems depressing but I think anybody would have probably reacted the same. What I don't get, though, is how the judge can give a woman with no job and no means to provide her big family, the custody of her younger bros and sisters. One of her bros is almost of age and later has a job so I understand, but the other 4 are all minors and there's one sister that knows the wrong crowd, so Maggie and the oldest brother Pike need to pay attention to what she does. Not even the fact that she's offered a job from the hotel were her mom worked is enough to make her a legal guardian. But I don't know American Law, so I have no idea how it works.

Anyway, if that would be my only issue, it wouldn't be much. But I also didn't like Maggie as a character. She looked after everyone and didn't have time to do what she wanted and I understood that. But she was also shallow, weak, and in general I felt she lacked character. It was as if others had to push her to do things, otherwise she wouldn't do anything. She rarely took the initiative, and this doesn't sound "strong" to me.

The main male character, prince Viktor, was so and so. I didn't like him 100% but I didn't hate him either. He was a bit better than Maggie in characterization, but still not a deep character. He also felt flat and it never once made me swoon.

Another bad point is the insta-love aspect of the story. While I find insta-lust ok because it's something superficial that deals with the exterior of a person and the need to satisfy one's sexual desires, I hate insta-love with a passion.

After the second encounter Maggie and Viktor have, they spend some moments together. It's been a day since their first awkward meeting at the hotel where she works, and they decide to start with a clean slate. Since the book is in first person POV, we could read their thoughts on each other. Well, I was bored to hell when most of what was said was that meeting the other changed his/her life... It's so unrealistic. The pace of the story was slow, since the author didn't make the MCs kiss until we're deep in the story, and in my opinion, had she not mentioned these cliches in the inner monologues of the characters, I think we could have had a better build up despite Maggie and Viktor spend only a few days together.

One last thing. I know that this is inspired by Roman Holiday, but reversed. But it was incredibly slow. I usually like slow burn, but this was too slow. Too unnecessary scenes, too predictable developments, when I would have loved more dept in the love story that was being crafted through the story. Reading this book tired me to the point I didn't care if the characters ended up together. And I hate this because like I said, the book had good premises and it could use more angst. But nope. Whatever.

This is just my opinion on this book and it doesn't change the fact that I like the author and how she writes. Maybe it will go better with the next book from this series. ...more

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