Books,  Reviews

Review: How to Catch a Prince by Rachel Hauck

howtocatchaprince
Click here to pick up your own copy.

How to Catch a Prince by Rachel Hauck
Genre: Romance
Publisher: Zondervan
Publication Date: February 2015

American heiress Corina Del Rey is struggling. Since her twin brother’s death, she’s barely been able to hold anything together. Her parents have distanced themselves from anything resembling life and even her job is just…well…just. She technically doesn’t even need to work since she’s the heir to a huge fortune, but she needs something to fill the hours of her day. She has to figure out how to stop thinking about her brother Carlos and obsessing over his death.

As if her world isn’t messed up enough, she is about to find out that she’s still married to that guy who dumped her five years ago. The same one that she hasn’t seen, connected with or contacted in five years. Oh and did I mention he’s a prince too? Not sarcastic. The guy’s really a prince. A gorgeous, rugby playing prince.

Prince Stephen of Brighton isn’t too happy with the state of his life either. His injured ankle is keeping him away from Rugby (he’s a professional player) and he’s wracked with guilt about his life. You see he knows how Corina’s brother died. He was there. But he can’t tell anyone. Especially not Corina. She’ll hate him forever if she knows.

 

When his brother shows up with a marriage certificate, the little, weak thread of control that he felt he’d had withers and fades away. He’s got to track down Corina, tell her that he never dissolved her marriage, and try to get her to sign an annulment.

As with the other books in the series (Once Upon a Prince and Princess Ever After) Rachel Hauck has created beautiful characters that we enjoy following. Though the situation with Corina is darker than those in the previous books, (the loss of her brother is front and center throughout) I feel this only adds to the richness of the story. Stephen’s struggle with guilt and hiding in his job is something that any of us can relate to and understand. Corina working with her parents after the death of their son is especially heartbreaking. There were moments that I was not happy with how things were turning out. At one point, I yelled at the book. I don’t do that very often, but I was highly invested in this story!

I loved how Rachel had the story come together. I even wondered if, for the first time, she might not have things work out perfectly. I won’t share how it ended – I don’t want to spoil anyone! I’ll just say that this journey felt different than her other books, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t like it. I loved every minute and am happy to say that Rachel has kept up the high standards I’ve come to expect from her writing.

If you love romance, don’t miss this series!

Rated PG-13: With this being just a bit darker, I’d say it skews to older tweens and teens.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Thanks!