Once Upon a Prince

Once Upon a Prince

Rachel Hauck

Genre: Romance

Summary (from Goodreads):  Once Upon a Prince, the first novel in the Royal Wedding series by bestselling author Rachel Hauck, treats you to a modern-day fairy tale.

Susanna Truitt never dreamed of a great romance or being treated like a princess---just to marry the man she has loved for twelve years. But life isn’t going according to plan. When her high-school-sweetheart-turned-Marine-officer breaks up instead of proposing, Susanna scrambles to rebuild her life.

The last thing Prince Nathaniel expects to find on his American holiday to St. Simon’s Island is the queen of his heart. A prince has duties, and his family’s tense political situation has chosen his bride for him. When Prince Nathaniel comes to Susanna’s aid under the fabled Lover’s Oak, he is blindsided by love.

Their lives are worlds apart. He’s a royal prince. She’s a ordinary girl. But everything changes when Susanna receives an invitation to Nathaniel’s coronation.

It’s the ultimate choice. His kingdom or her heart? God’s will or their own?

Review: When I picked this book up, I guess I didn't read the jacket closely enough, because I had no idea that this was Christian fiction.  Now, there are some Christian fiction books that I have really enjoyed reading, so I am not penalizing this book simply for being in that genre.  What I found off-putting was the amount of religious fervor that the characters displayed; for example, Prince Nathaniel walked into a church and fell prostrate on the ground praising God, and Susanna lost her job and her home and basically just said she would "give her life to God" and didn't do anything herself to solve her problems.

I ended up putting the book down for a few reasons.  In addition to the issues mentioned above, I felt like the relationship between Susanna and Nathaniel developed too quickly to be realistic, and that Susanna's reaction to the breakup of her 12 year relationship with her boyfriend was completely incomprehensible.  Also, the amount of time spent explaining the history of the Brighton entail and how it would affect the future of the two countries got very very boring.  There was also something about the language that bothered me - the sentence structures and word choices didn't seem genuine to the characters' nationalities (but perhaps they are, and I'm just ignorant).

The premise still sounds interesting to me (although completely reminiscent of The Prince & Me), but I have so many wonderful-sounding books in my to-read pile that I decided I didn't want to waste my time on this one.

Rating: NA