Searching For Her Prince by Karen Rose Smith

Searching For Her Prince

By Karen Rose Smith

184 pages

Published by Harlequin Mills & Boon (2002)

Lady Amira Sierra Corbin was sent to Chicago by Queen Marissa of Penwyck – a small faraway island kingdom in Europe – to look for hotel tycoon Marcus Cordello, who could be the heir to the throne. Amira’s mother was the queen’s lady-in-waiting, and Amira herself was a companion for the princesses. Kindly Queen Marissa was quite motherly towards her that she trusted Amira enough to be her emissary for the mission.

King Morgan had fallen ill and a scandal was untimely exposed regarding the heirs to the throne of Penwyck: the current so-called heirs, twins Owen and Dylan, might have been switched at birth with another set of twins. The latter changeling twins – the possible true heirs of the throne – had been adopted by an American couple. The set of twins that had been taken to America were whom Queen Marissa was looking for.

Based on what little information they had, Amira learnt that one of the twins was known as Marcus Cordello and he was a successful multimillionaire in the hotel industry in America. Thus the hotel became the first place Amira went to in search for the possible prince. Anyhow, DNA tests would settle the matter.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

Amira ran into Marcus not too long after her arrival, but having no pictures of him provided by the Royal Intelligence (it’s a small kingdom after all, thus the understandable lack of intelligence power 😅), Amira had no idea who he was. Worst, it was love at first sight for both of them, and Amira was too happy too soon to share with Marcus what she was up to in Chicago.

Marcus, taken aback by Amira’s absurd story, decided not to reveal his true identity. He did not want to be taken away to the faraway unknown kingdom, as he valued his freedom and the carefree lifestyle he currently enjoyed. He did not want to be a prince or have anything to do with royalty. So Marcus introduced himself with his lesser-known middle name, Brent (yes, you guessed it, Amira told him about her royal mission before she even knew Marcus’ name, thus giving him the chance to abandon his Marcus Cordello identity before she knew what was happening).

While Marcus / Brent knew he should be keeping Amira far away from him, his whirlwind crush on her made him want to spend as much time with her while she was in America. He offered to take her sightseeing, and Amira – with the permission of the queen – agreed to go with him. Their feelings towards the other, as expected, intensified as they spend more time with one another. Marcus / Brent wanted to bed her from the very first day they met, while Amira was not sure what she wanted from that man.

Spending a few days with Brent, Amira seemed to have lost her focus and forgotten about her mission when she suddenly stopped pestering Marcus Cordello’s secretary or staking out in front of his office. Instead, she busied herself caring for (read: mothering) Marcus / Brent when he conveniently got injured in a mugging incident. Amira even had the time to join Marcus / Brent visiting his childhood home out of town.

Marcus Cordello’s deception was uncovered while they were out of town: the kingdom’s Royal Intelligence eventually managed to obtain a picture of Marcus and sent it to Amira. When Amira realized she had been spending time with the very man she was looking for, she felt duped because Marcus had not been honest with her. Angered, Amira left Chicago and return to Penwyck. Marcus felt his life was empty without Amira, and he did feel guilty for deceiving her by pretending to be someone else.

Marcus finally decided to fly to Penwyck to settle things with Amira. In addition to the fact that his father eventually admitted that Marcus and his twin Shane were adopted after all, Marcus also agreed to meet the Penwyck royals to ascertain his true identity – although, he hoped the DNA test would prove negative.

Marcus had an audience with Queen Marissa soon after he arrived at Penwyck, but amazingly the queen did not seem to bother too much about the possibility that Marcus could be her very own child whom had been switched at birth. Queen Marissa was quite indifferent, and I practically slapped my forehead and cringed when all Marcus could talk to the queen was about the possibility of winning back Amira. And then he excused himself from the queen to get to Amira as soon as possible!

Marcus found Amira pondering the turn of events in her life, and he immediately approached her and re-introduced himself, now as Marcus Cordello. Then he proposed marriage to the overjoyed Amira, in which she accepted. They promised to each other that whatever happened after this (read: whatever the result of the DNA test), both of them will try to work things through in the name of love.

That was the end of the story, and I was like, hey! What about the result of the DNA test? Whatever will happen to Penwyck? Well, this novel focused on the relationship between Marcus and Amira after all, so other matters had apparently been swept into oblivion without conclusion. Marcus and Amira’s love was not too healthy a relationship, at least in my eyes – and please note that I had no experience with men anyway, so my judgement could be wrong. For me, Amira’s honesty in admitting her feelings for Brent was a bit cringe-worthy. She was too straightforward and revealed too much too soon, and she (annoyingly) expected Marcus to do the same. Within the few days of their acquaintanceship, she was already determined to push Marcus to tell her what became of his past relationship because she believed that was what had turned him into a very reserved man who wanted to avoid commitment. If I was Marcus, I would have been smothered by what she did. Luckily Marcus’ love for her was bigger than her pushy attitude, so the love persevered.