Wear It Like a Crown

Zarah Detand can write strong scenes between her MCs with clever dialogue and lots of UST, but my god, this book was LONG. It needed more plot besides: Joshua and Leo flirt with each other, talk about it with their BFFs, sleep together, talk about it some more with their BFFs, and agonize over why they can't be together for 350 pages. I like a good slow build romance as much as anyone else but there has to be something else to keep my interest. And for a novel about the heir to the British throne, there was very little that felt genuine or fleshed out. I don't mean that every royal romance has to have a severely disapproving monarch (see [b:Red, White & Royal Blue 41150487 Red, White & Royal Blue Casey McQuiston https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1566742512l/41150487.SY75.jpg 61657690] or [b:His Royal Secret 31178834 His Royal Secret (His Royal Secret, #1) Lilah Pace https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1468969648l/31178834.jpg 49767076]), but Joshua's entire family is immediately 100% fine with his coming out and the object of his affection, to the point where they barely register as real people. Maybe reading this book immediately after watching Season 4 of “The Crown” was a bad idea, as the series doesn't paint the most flattering portrait of British royalty. So maybe I viewed even this fictional version with skepticism from the start. YMMV if you are more of a Anglophile than I am, and don't mind endless scenes of characters saying “He can't possibly want me!” and “He can't possibly be with someone like me!” ad nauseum.