Harlequin Romance Blog Book Tour | feat. a #PubDay Book Review for “The Prince and the Wedding Planner” by Jennifer Faye

Posted Tuesday, 3 March, 2020 by jorielov , , , , 0 Comments

Book Review banner created by Jorie in Canva.

Acquired Book By: I’ve been hosting for Prism Book Tours since September of 2017 – having noticed the badge on Tressa’s blog (Wishful Endings) as we would partake in the same blog tours and/or book blogosphere memes. As I enquired about hosting for Prism, I found I liked the niche of authors and stories they were featuring regularly. Oft-times you’ll find Prism Book Tours alighting on my blog through the series of guest features and spotlights with notes I’ll be hosting on behalf of their authors when I’m not showcasing book reviews on behalf of Harlequin Heartwarming which has become my second favourite imprint of Harlequin next to my beloved #LoveINSPIRED Suspense. I am also keenly happy PRISM hosts a variety of Indie Authors and INSPY Fiction novelists.

I received a complimentary copy of “The Prince and the Wedding Planner” direct from the author Jennifer Faye in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Rainbow Digital Clip Art Washi Tape made by The Paper Pegasus. Purchased on Etsy by Jorie and used with permission.

On why I’ve been enjoying reading this author:

When I first started seeking out authors via the imprints of Harlequin, one of the authors who stood out to me initially from the Harlequin Romance line (as at the time, I was sampling stories from Romance, Super Romance & Heartwarming – sorting out which of the three imprints suited me best as a reader; as I had already realised how much the LI: Suspense line fit me!) was Jennifer Faye.

In a large part due to her consistency, her continuity when she wrote duologies, specialised focused serials and the ways in which she drew you into her Contemporary Romance worlds within this curious imprint which features pink covers in handle portable sized paperback editions! I liked the convenience of the size, the realistic characters she pulled into her world(s) and the ways in which our contemporary modern lives were explored elsewhere from where we generally live our own lives. It gave a sense of place but also, of how uniquely you can find a Contemporary placed in a setting you are itching to visit such as her Greek Isles Brides series which took me back to Greece.

I have been enjoying exploring her stories, stepping in the shoes of her characters and happily appreciating the journey of discovering her collective works.

Rainbow Digital Clip Art Washi Tape made by The Paper Pegasus. Purchased on Etsy by Jorie and used with permission.

Harlequin Romance Blog Book Tour | feat. a #PubDay Book Review for “The Prince and the Wedding Planner” by Jennifer FayeThe Prince and the Wedding Planner
Subtitle: A Bartolini Legacy Novel
by Jennifer Faye
Source: Author via Prism Book Tours

When different worlds collide…

…sparks fly!

With her family name on the line, wedding planner Bianca Bartolini needs this royal wedding to go perfectly—she can’t afford distractions. Too bad the bride’s dashing brother has other plans! Duty-bound Crown Prince Leo has mere weeks to announce his own engagement, but none of the candidates measure up to Bianca. They’re the most unlikely match, but might that just make them perfect for one another?

Genres: Contemporary (Modern) Fiction (post 1945), Contemporary Romance, Romance Fiction



Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 9781335556189

Also by this author: Beauty and Her Boss, Miss White and the Seventh Heir, Heiress's Royal Baby Bombshell, Carrying the Greek Tycoon's Baby, Claiming the Drakos Heir, Wearing the Greek Millionaire's Ring (Spotlight), Wearing the Greek Millionaire's Ring , Her Christmas Pregnancy Surprise, Christmas in Bayberry, Love Blooms

Published by Harlequin Books

on 3rd March, 2020

Format: Large Print Edition

Pages: 256

Published by: Harlequin Books (@HarlequinBooks)

Formats Available: Ebook and Paperback

Converse via: #Contemporary #RomanceBooks/Novels and #HarlequinRomance

Rainbow Digital Clip Art Washi Tape made by The Paper Pegasus. Purchased on Etsy by Jorie and used with permission.

About Jennifer Faye

Jennifer Faye

Award-winning author, Jennifer Faye pens fun, heartwarming contemporary romances with rugged cowboys, sexy billionaires and enchanting royalty. Internationally published with books translated into nine languages. She is a two-time winner of the RT Book Reviews Reviewers' Choice Award, the CataRomance Reviewers' Choice Award, named a TOP PICK author, and been nominated for numerous other awards.

Rainbow Digital Clip Art Washi Tape made by The Paper Pegasus. Purchased on Etsy by Jorie and used with permission.

my review of the prince & the wedding planner:

When I first opened The Prince and the Wedding Planner I learnt the fuller truth of what inspired the series as we take this new journey following three siblings as they try to sort out their lives ahead of a paternity test being taken in order to settle a will for their inheritance. At first glance I must admit the premise was rather a daunting one! To place three siblings in such a fix of a muddled circumstance wherein they do not know which of them isn’t quite who they felt they were all this time in their own family almost felt cruel in some regards as the news and announcement of their paternity issues arises only after the passing of their parents? Goodness! Quite the shocker I would think for Bianca, Gia and Enzo to wrap their minds round as their dealing with their own stages of grief and sorrow!

I think that is singularly the most shocking surprise any child or spouse could have about a loved one – the suddenness of a car accident and in that blink of fate, lives are taken prematurely away from you. I can not even imagine the depth of that kind of loss – where you go from having someone present in your life just as they always were and then, due to a traffic incident they have gone ahead of you to Heaven. The jarring that would place on your heart, on your memories and just the unsettling feeling of how you’re whole sense of self in this world would be instantly altered is full of layered emotional anguish.

I am not even sure how you would process the kind of shocking news these siblings learnt ahead of the reading of their parents will – it would have been far kinder if they had learnt the truth from their mother prior to her death but that’s retrospectively being cognisant of viewing life backwards rather than how it is lived forwards. For them, their whole world imploded and you feel the angst of their new reality long before the will is ever read. Faye wrote such a realistic method of their discovery that I felt riveted to the page and just wanted to reach out to hug them all!

One of my favourite ways for characters to meet is the unexpected rendezvous of seeing each other at a mutual event of someone they already know – in this case, Bianca is a wedding planner and the brooding prince Leo is in attendance. He doesn’t give too much out about himself at their first meeting, clouding over the fact he is a prince (of course, he would!) and letting Bianca feel weak in the knees for the meeting as she already recognised him from the papers! Silly royal!

I definitely felt it was kismet for Bianca to cross paths with Leo when she had – the strife of fighting with her siblings over their inherited rights and the uncertainty of paternity placing a wedge in their lives, it felt brilliant she could get away from that kind of subjective chaos and just do something normal for herself like planning a wedding for royal! She needed the space and she needed the distance, too, as despite the questions swirling round their heads I’d imagine with the pending news of those paternity tests looming you’d drive yourself half bonkers awaiting the word from the clinic who ran the test! You have to give yourself grievance for caring after your own health because life is a jarring ride at the best of times but during the course of grief, sorrow and funerals – it can be upped to a heightened degree of emotional duress!

The Queen in this story is rather a stuffy old Mum who can’t see past her own nose to better understand that her actions are affecting her daughter! She wants to maintain tradition and duty in an age of her country’s history where the younger generation want to have more flexibility and a firmer say in what happens in their lives. You can respect their angst in dealing with her because she is not accepting the changes in her life and simply wants to rule with iron determined grit to get her way and not worry about the consequences of those actions and words which spitefully harm others who are inflicted by them. In some ways, there are overtures of this story reaching past its context of this fictional world into the larger reach of our modern era. If you take into consideration a certain royal couple who are attempting to forge their own future away from their own royal assignments whilst dealing with interference and staunched older opinions about royal duty – you can see the cross-over effect of how relevant this story is Faye has written.

Throughout the story, Faye wants you to remember to hold back judgment and to see how her characters choose to take steps to reassert their own independence in their lives. They each desire to find happiness and to catch it as long as they can whilst dealing with obligations none of them are truly ready or prepared to accept. Its a lovely story about the fortitude one needs to survive the ruts in the road life brings along whilst keeping hopeful about the future which is never quite written in stone as some would like to believe!

Except as so much about this story was riding on the results of a paternity test and I admit, I was slightly disappointed that those results end on a cliffhanger until the next installment of this series releases. For whichever reason, not having that bit of resolve in this first installment felt wrong somehow even though I felt Faye gave us resolution for the characters involved in the novel, I felt there was something a bit too ominous looming over the ending. I never like when we have unresolved questions at the end of stories, and even though this is a trilogy – I guess I thought this one bit of news would have been revealled whereas I have a feeling it will be saved for the final installment.

on the contemporary & romantic styling of jennifer faye:

For anyone who has lost someone they love they will recognise the anguish of having to revisit somewhere that person had lived their life prior to death. There is this eeriness that settles over their belongings – it is almost like you’ve left the door open and they are just outside, about to come back in and resume a conversation. Except that their not of course and the ache of that loss is evermore present the more you move about their rooms and question how all the future conversations are now lost. Its a trippy experience how we as humans grieve, how the presence of those we lose are like fragmented pieces of memory, reality and time co-merging for our attention and how it takes a bit more time to accept the loss, transition through our grief and find the joy again in the memories we once shared. I felt Faye did a wonderful job of enveloping us in the initial reactions Bianca was facing as we begun to read her story.

Faye writes realistic narratives for today’s Romance reader and that is exactly why I love continuing to follow her publishing journey. Within the confines of this series in particular, it is how she decided to bridge the gap between the working class and the royal class which interested me the most. Bianca’s family had wealth but she was raised with the knowledge that none of that was of importance to her if she couldn’t prove herself out in the world first. For Leo, I had the impression that his duty to his country and to his Queen (his own mother) was the only thing he put forward in his life and never considered his own heart until he met Bianca. I think those changes in Leo’s heart also were inspired by his sister who was going through her own anguish with their Queen Mum whilst planning her own wedding.

Rainbow Digital Clip Art Washi Tape made by The Paper Pegasus. Purchased on Etsy by Jorie and used with permission.

This blog tour is courtesy of:

Prism Book ToursFun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Special Announcement:

As you know, this is a giveaway-free book blog – as I do not host giveaways here on Jorie Loves A Story (per my Review Policy) however, there is one exception to the rule – I love to talk about and happily promote authors who are hosting a giveaway on *their website or blog!* whilst my review is posting via a blog tour! For this reason, it is with a joy and pleasure to bring this to your attention:

Bookmark offer from Jennifer Faye.

All you have to do is go to Jennifer’s Contact Page

and let her know your physical mailing address*.

NOTE: Please state the quantity you desire and which bookmarks/titles you are interested in. And remember you can order extra to share with your favorite bookstore, library and family/friends. *for readers in the continental USA

You can have your very *own!* The Prince and the Wedding Planner bookmark if you follow the steps outlined the author provided to receive one! I realise my blog is read internationally, but this is unfortunately only for those readers and visitors of mine stateside. I truly think you will be charmed by the eloquence of her bookmarks and the way in which they are lovingly sturdy and the perfect length for keeping your spot in whichever book your #currentlyreading!

Rainbow Digital Clip Art Washi Tape made by The Paper Pegasus. Purchased on Etsy by Jorie and used with permission.

The Prince and the Wedding Planner blog tour banner provided by Prism Book Tours and is used with permission.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

End of the Blog Tour badged provided by Prism Book ToursFun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

{SOURCES: Book cover for “The Prince and the Wedding Planner”, the bookmark giveaway banner, book synopsis, author biography, author photograph of Jennifer Faye, the tour host badge and Prism Book Tours badges were all provided by Prism Book Tours and used with permission. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets were embedded due to codes provided by Twitter. Rainbow Digital Clip Art Washi Tape made by The Paper Pegasus. Purchased on Etsy by Jorie and used with permission. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: Book Review Banner using Unsplash.com (Creative Commons Zero) Photography by Frank McKenna, #HoHoHoRAT 2019 badge and the Comment Box Banner.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2020.

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About jorielov

I am self-educated through local libraries and alternative education opportunities. I am a writer by trade and I cured a ten-year writer’s block by the discovery of Nanowrimo in November 2008. The event changed my life by re-establishing my muse and solidifying my path. Five years later whilst exploring the bookish blogosphere I decided to become a book blogger. I am a champion of wordsmiths who evoke a visceral experience in narrative. I write comprehensive book showcases electing to get into the heart of my reading observations. I dance through genres seeking literary enlightenment and enchantment. Starting in Autumn 2013 I became a blog book tour hostess featuring books and authors. I joined The Classics Club in January 2014 to seek out appreciators of the timeless works of literature whose breadth of scope and voice resonate with us all.

"I write my heart out and own my writing after it has spilt out of the pen." - self quote (Jorie of Jorie Loves A Story)

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Posted Tuesday, 3 March, 2020 by jorielov in Arranged Marriages in Royalty, Blog Tour Host, Contemporary Romance, Family Drama, Family Life, Inheritance & Identity, Prism Book Tours, Romance Fiction, Sweet Romance, Unexpected Inheritance




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