Melanie's Reviews > Princess Charming

3.5 Stars!

Princess Charming was a very enjoyable read and a delightful spin on the Cinderella fairytale.

The Wildes come from a long line of people who find their true loves. Now, one of the Wilde cousins believes if they imitate legendary lovers from history, they will find their own true loves. First up is Ashton Wilde, who uncovers his sister’s matchmaking ways when, at the ball his sister arranged, he comes across a damsel in distress at midnight. However, Maura Collyer is the furthest thing from Cinderella and isn’t looking for Ash to become her Prince Charming. Despite her protests, Ash is determined to help rescue her prized horse which was sold to a Viscount by her stepmother. Soon, the two are on an unexpected adventure and will have to decide if their love is real or if they’re simply playing into the fairytale.

Maura is an incredibly strong woman and has no issue solving her own problems to get what she needs. She has a tendency towards violence when it comes to protecting what’s hers, which I absolutely loved about her. Ash is incredibly close with his family and I enjoyed the lighter side you see of him when he’s interacting with them. Whereas Maura is a bit rough when dealing with others, Ash tends to be quite charming. It was a lot of fun watching Maura and Ash interact as they had such differing personalities and the chemistry between them was fantastic. I will say though, it grated a bit how Ash would take things over and force Maura into doing things his way. Even if he was right about what needed to be done, I wish he’d gone about convincing Maura in a better way.

Other than the issue mentioned above regarding Ash, I only had one other minor complaint with the book. Maura’s stepmother Priscilla started off the book in the role of evil stepmother, but over the course of the book her personality flip flopped a bit too much for my liking. I understand what the author was trying to do with her character, but it just made Priscilla too wishy washy in my opinion.

The plot to rescue Emperor, Maura’s prized stallion, was a fun one. Maura has this innate way with horses, especially with Emperor, which we get to see time and time again throughout the book. I like that Maura had a passion that was unusual for ladies of her time and the author did a great job showing how much horses truly meant to Maura. The author also did a good job tying in the plot with Emperor, with the scandal surrounding Maura’s father. The conclusion to both of these plots was enjoyable and I like how things ended up for the villain.

Overall, Princess Charming was a good first installment in the Legendary Lovers series and I will definitely be continuing on with the rest of the books.