The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. Hoover’s ( November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.Īt first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. Of course, catastrophe is just around the corner, and its resolution comes only after they journey to Thesolo, where Naledi can discover her roots while at the same time working to stop an outbreak of a mysterious disease.Ī delightful and sexy take on love between a suave African prince and a nerdy epidemiology student.

Thabiso’s big ego and sense of entitlement are tempered by his exposure to working-class realities, while Naledi discovers how wonderful it can be to open up and connect. Thabiso insinuates himself into Naledi’s life, and they become friends and, soon after, lovers. Little does she realize that the incompetent new waiter she's been trying to train is, in fact, the “Playboy PanAfrique,” come to New York to check out his intended. Naledi hasn’t been lucky in love, and she wonders whether she’s “like a faulty piece of Velcro people tried to stick to her, but there was something intrinsically wrong in her design.” When she gets an email addressing her as the long-lost betrothed of Prince Thabiso of the small (fictional) African country of Thesolo, Naledi hits delete.

Being raised in foster homes has given her the toughness she needs to succeed as a black woman in an often hostile world but also a vulnerability. Naledi, a graduate student in epidemiology, juggles lab work, a waitressing job, and a drunken mess of a best friend. But with ironic nods to Disney and Mills & Boon, Cole gives 21st-century twists. Cole makes her Avon debut with a romance that draws on familiar genre tropes only to upend them.Īn arranged marriage, a mistaken identity, and a handsome prince from an imaginary country are just a few common tropes in the first book in Cole’s ( An Extraordinary Union, 2017, etc.) Reluctant Royals series.

A princess in theory by alyssa cole