Playing the Royal Game by Carol Marinelli

Title - Playing the Royal Game
Author - Carol Marinelli
Genre - Romance
Publisher - Harlequin
Source - Netgalley
Synopsis - STOP THE PRESS: THE SANTINA-JACKSON ROYAL FAIRY TALE—FACT OR FICTION?
It seemed like every girl’s dream: fall in love with a prince and be whisked off for your very own glamorous happy-ever-after—a royal fairy tale for Allegra Jackson and Prince Alessandro Santina.
Allegra’s headline-grabbing family hardly prepared her for a life of public duty, and sinfully delicious Prince Alessandro has always seemed virtually allergic to the idea of settling down in Santa Maria.
Out of all the flamboyant, beautiful women his name’s been linked with, the heir to the throne picked ordinary Allegra with the family from hell…
Is everything really as it seems regarding the tabloid’s
engagement of the year?

Sorry it been a while since I've published a review. It's not been a case of, I've stopped reading books. Kind of the opposite, I'm reading a lot more now. It's just every time I write a review, I feel like all I'm doing is bashing the book. And it doesn't leave a nice feeling.
And I knew I had to write a review on this book, and I've been putting it off for weeks.

When I first requested this book, I had no idea is was part of a series. Nothing was mentioned in the synopsis or book cover. To be completely honest I didn't even realise until after I'd finished the book and checked it's reviews online at Goodreads. Maybe if I'd read the previous books, I wouldn't have had difficulties liking the characters in this one.

It starts off really well. Even though Allegra is feeling miserable, and has had a rotten day. She comes across as strong and likeable, she showed spunk. The Prince was down to earth and likeable...and then it all goes to hell.

They move to his home country and they both decide to become the opposite of what they were like at the beginning. Allegra decides to become a shell of what she was. She thought with spunk, at the beginning, but then slowly I felt like she was giving up. She let Alessandro treat her like... someone not worthy and that just really got on my nerve.
And Alessandro...what an ass! The way he thought, acted made me really want to punch him in the face. I don't know what happened to the guy at the beginning of the book but Alessandro in his home country was a douchebag.

The only saving grace to this book was the writing. Normally with this type of book, where both the main characters annoy the heck out of me, I just skip to the ending. But Carol Marinelli can write and I finished it right to the end, maybe with a huff and puff. But I finished it. I'm not sure how Alessandro and Allegra are going to cope with being King and Queen. To be completely honest I don't think they'll serve their country to well. They're completely shut off from the real world. Maybe if Allegra wasn't so weak she might have been able to show Alessandro the truth, but I feel like she's just a weak character and Alessandro is great at getting what he wants.

I would have liked for the book to continue on a bit longer, maybe after marriage Alessandro might have calmed down a little and Allegra wouldn't have been so meek to do what she wanted.

I'm going to give this book a 2.5/5 - even though the characters were a little bit too flawed, the writing was great.

Image via Goodreads