- Affaire Royale (1986) – 3.5*
- Command Performance (1987) – 3.5*
- The Playboy Prince (1987) – 3.5*
- Cordina’s Crown Jewel (1992) – 3.5*
Although Roberts’s romances tend to be steamier than I prefer, I still find myself picking them up because her books have a lot of other things to offer – likable characters, good plots, humor, friendships, and engaging stories. The four books about the royal family of the fictional country of Cordina were pretty typical Roberts fare, and I thoroughly enjoyed them, especially since I was reading them after slogging through Stoner, Beartown, and How To Stop Time right in a row. I was READY for something fluffy!
The first three books focus on three royal siblings. The first book is about the oldest, a daughter, who starts the book by escaping her kidnappers and fleeing to safety – but now she has amnesia and can’t remember what happened, or anything about her past life. This should have been completely cheesy – and it totally was – but Roberts handles the story deftly and made me still care even if the plot was a little ridiculous.
In Comand Performance the story focuses on the crown prince. The terrorist who orchestrated the kidnapping in the first book is back, so there is just enough mystery to keep things interesting.
The youngest brother is the star of the third book, which was probably my least favorite. Bennet was just a little too pushy of a character for my liking, but this story did wrap up the whole situation with the terrorist, which was fun.
The final book was published a few years later and is about a member of the next generation of the royal family, Camilla. This was my favorite of the series. Camilla’s father (her parents are the couple from the first book) is an American, so her family has always divided their time between America and Cordina. Fed up with the constant pressure of the press, Camilla runs away to just “live life” for a while – and of course is rather bad at it and ends up wrecking her rental car in a muddy Vermont ditch in the middle of a thunder storm. I really liked Camilla’s relationship with Delaney and the way he falls in love with her without having any idea of who she really is.
Overall, this isn’t really a series of books that’s destined to become one of my favorites. For lack of a better term, the writing is very 80’s. But they were still fun, and they really helped pull me out of my reading doldrums. I can see myself revisiting them if I’m ever in need of some quick palette cleansers again.
The Aroma of Books 