I am SO excited for this new trilogy from Vasti. This was an absolute romp of a romance, just a delight from start to finish. With Vasti's signature wit we follow Lady Ruby Ballimore, whose honest and upfront demeanor lead her to disgracing her father and wanting to leave London for the season. And where better to go than the currenlty unoccupied summer home of a princess from a made up principality (Vasti notes is inpired by Genovia which delights my milennial heart). Except the house isn't as empty as she and her two friends expect. In residence is Malcolm Archer the steward of the house, who's using the fact that it hasn't been occupied in order to run a smuggling operation. What follows is both Ruby and Malcolm working to outmaneuver the other, and getting flustered and flirty in the process. Until, that is, the princess really does show up at the house talking about kidnapping plots and assassination attempts. There's a lot of world building and character development happening in this one as Vasti sets up the players and circumstances of this new trilogy. To a degree this meant that I felt the relationship between Malcolm and Ruby sometimes became secondary, but Vasti is such a master of the genre to me that their chemistry is still palpable and tactile when they are the focus. I love that this new trilogy has an overarching plot surrounding the princess, and I love that it really turns up the dial on the tongue in cheek playfulness in Vasti's prose. I really can't wait to see what happens next! Thank you to St Martins for an early copy in exchange for this review

This was fun, and i absolutely loved the setup of this, but where this fell short for me was in Krish's character. Sejal was a GREAT FMC. I found her to have a lot of depth and nuance and i loved her journey over the course of the book to finding her comfort with accepting help and love from those around her. she has huge eldest daughter energy, and has grown up with a lot of trust issues so i really understood her. Krish on the other hand left me feeling like I wasn't seeing the whole picture. He's keeping a lot from Sejal, and with good reason but for some reason it also felt like a lot of information about him was kept from me as a reader and so while i was a big fan of his behaviour with Sejal and the way he took care of her it sort of felt like he existed only in relation to her until about 75% of the way through the book. I haven't read the first book (Partners in Crime) but you definitely don't need to have read it in order to read and enjoy this one, though i feel like i should go back and pick that one up now! More spy style rom coms please! This was fun to read! Thank you to Avon for the gifted copy in exchange for this review!