*I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published on Yours, Chloe are completely honest and my own, and are in now way influenced by the gifting opportunity.
Title: The Prince and the Bodyguard
Author: Nora Phoenix
Genre: LGBTQIA+ Romance
Rating: ★★★
Spice Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ (Explicit Open Door)
I’m Prince Gregory of Great Britain, fourth in line to a crown I never wanted. All I ask for is one year of anonymity at college in America, the chance to breathe without the weight of duty crushing my chest. The King reluctantly agrees, with one condition: I’m never alone.
That’s how Bash enters my life. My bodyguard. All quiet control, sharp instincts, and a presence I feel everywhere. Our relationship is strictly professional; we blend in together at college, but forced proximity has other ideas. His nearness becomes impossible to ignore, the tension between us tight enough to snap.
Bash needs this job to pay for his mum’s medical bills. I need him to guard my identity. I’ve hidden my sexuality for years to avoid shame and scandal and to protect the crown. And then one brave kiss later, everything changes. For the first time I feel authentic. I’m just…me. But I have a duty to England, and he’s sworn to protect me, not fall for me. Loving my bodyguard is dangerous and forbidden but taking the risk is the most real thing I’ve ever known…
The Prince and the Bodyguard is the latest steamy M/M romance from author Nora Phoenix and the fourth book in their Prince Pact series. This is a fake dating prince/bodyguard romance set against the backdrop of an American college.
This is a fake dating romance but with a different spin on the trope. They start fake dating and then it turns into real dating but under the pretence of fake dating for anyone who might be opinionated on the matter. The actual fake dating trope only lasts for the first 25% of the book which felt rushed in my opinion.
Eddie and Bash had good chemistry throughout. There was a good ‘fuck it’ moment when Bash gives in to putting his feelings over his professionalism, followed by a good portrayal of the giddy feeling you experience at the start of a relationship. I liked how the intimacy and spicy scenes gradually built up as this felt realistic, it would just have been nicer to have actually seen more of it rather than had it retrospectively referenced.
The time at college also felt quite dull as we saw very little of it and spent most of our time in their poky little student flat.
One of the biggest strengths of the characters was their maturity, especially their sense to identify when they were wrong and ability to problem solve how it can be resolved. This made a nice change from the fact that the romance genre is normally full of the miscommunication trope, one of my pet-hates as a reader.
One of the things I really would have preferred to see would be use of British English vs American English to make it authentic to each character. Eddie saying Americanised phrases such as parking garage felt odd and just pulled me out of the narrative. It may sound harsh but I’d say don’t write British characters if you’re not prepared to write them authentically. This really knocked my rating of the book significantly. As did the fact that it felt like this book normalised the institutional homophobia in the British royal family rather than challenging it, which was a big shame. I did, however, think we had a stronger exploration of Bash’s bisexual identity against the backdrop of the worlds he exists in (the military and the secret service) being rife with homophobia, which was good to see.
Overall, I feel this is one of the weaker books in the Prince Pact series which is a shame as the concept had the potential to be really strong.
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