Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋 (I wanted just a bit more emotional pull)
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑 (Always hard to tell for me on audio but felt about average)
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥
Humor: A touch
Perspective: Third person from both hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? probably character
How did the speed of the story feel? medium
When mains are first on page together: not too far in, chapter 2
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Yes, 6 months later
Format: listened to audiobook through library (hoopla)

Should I read in order?
This is part of the Men of the Zodiac series by different authors and seemed fine to pick up alone.

Basic plot:
Nicholas must find a bride, but it certainly cannot be his irresistible gardener...

Give this a try if you want:
- contemporary romance
- fictional country – Callanos
- workplace romance (bit of employer/employee)
- gardener heroine
- prince hero
- hero needs a wife
- secret identity
- triathlete
- divorced heroine
- pierced hero
- tattooed hero
- medium steam – 2 scenes but the page count felt a bit lower

Ages:
- Didn’t see them mentioned but would guess late 20s, early 30s

First line:
The pounding on the door was seriously messing up his rhythm.

My thoughts:
Overall this was a fun read. I haven’t tried Covington yet, but grabbed her as an option for an Indigenous author for the Diverse Baseline Challenge.

I liked the book, the characters were lovable. The steam was fun!

I did struggle a bit with the royalty aspect because it brought in quite a bit of political talk, and if the hero was fit to rule, including people scheming behind the hero’s back and I wasn’t into that. But the book was on the shorter side and a nice read. I’d definitely read more by Covington!

Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.

- mention of father having alzheimers
- death of brother and his wife
- refugee camps are mentioned and visited (and need extra funding/help as they are in bad shape)
- paparazzi danger/drama
- mention of family member getting cancer
- domestic abuse and violence remembered, remembered assault in self defense

Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:

 
Safe sex: 

Condoms used 

 
Hows the consent? 

It’s good

 
Starts with a threesome sex scene (hero and two women) that’s interrupted
42% - kisses
52% - kisses that eventually lead to oral for her, hero as a pierced peen, bj (incomplete), missionary
77% - kisses, oral for her, her on top