3.5 stars, in fact.

This is one of Lynne Graham's lightest books. The hero and the heroine are very well developed characters and the chemistry between them is excellent. However, the story sometimes is a bit flat.

The secondary characters do their job well. Specially Maya. The twins' connection is really good. I'm looking forward the Maya's story, it looks promising ...

With a nice epilogue, LG created a really good story, as always. She is the HP queen, without a doubt.

I love a good Cinderella story and sadly, Cinderella’s Royal Secret by Lynne Graham didn't have the best Cinderella plot in regards to evil stepmother or stepsisters, so if you are looking for a more traditional retelling of Cinderella, this might not be the book for you. It was definitely more of a rags to riches storyline with a rich sheikh marrying a poor commoner who happen to be a 'down on her luck' cleaning woman.

Overall, it was a quick read. I did think this book had an interesting 'meet-cute' moment between the two main characters-- although, did get secondhand embarrassment from that scene.

There comes a time when a reader and a category must part ways and with this, Lynne Graham’s Cinderella’s Royal Secret, the time has come for me and the HP. If you’re looking for the HP’s requisite elements, they’re here, but their mix is a recipe gone bad, or my taste for them is off. Either way, I’m out. The only thing I still enjoyed about Graham was her humour, definitely evident, the rest was meh and way too much telling over showing to bring this baby to baby-filled post-HEA bliss. It started out all right, again because it was funny. Prince Rafiq is in Oxford to inaugurate something. Back home in the mythical kingdom of Zenara, the days are numbered before he must take another wife (yes, even though he’s only 28, this would be wife #2; the first one conveniently dead; they married when he was 16, squeeky-yucky detail #1 among others). Izzy Campbell is the chambermaid at his hotel, toiling at toilettes to finish her teaching degree and help her prodigal parents and twin sister (who also toils) to care for her disabled baby brother. It’s a misery-fest, but this family is CHEERFUL. Rafiq walks out of the bathroom as Izzy enters the hotel suite with her cleaning cart and it’s lust-at-first-sight. They have dinner, fall into bed, and, lo and behold, though Rafiq is infertile, Izzy is on the pill (were it not for those pesky anti-biotics and a butterfly stomach of subsequent heaving and puking, well, it could’ve worked) … tara! Broken condom and a few months later, Izzy makes her way to Zenara to tell Rafiq he’s going to be a father … twins no less. Miracle of miracles, his very own babies … Rafiq and Izzy must marry … and you know the rest.

Izzy really is pretty funny and most definitely forward and honest about her desire for the sexy Husband. He’s more restrained, after all the usual drug-addicted, negligent, profligate, promiscuous parents ensured that he learned to remain cold, unmoving, emotionally removed, an automaton of a man. Except for Izzy: she drives him mad, his desire for her knows no bounds.

Graham ticks off all the HP boxes and then some: adding the infertility business, one-too-many star-bursting love scenes … but fails to, unlike my first Graham which did this so well, The Greek’s Chosen Wife, make the emotional stakes for Rafiq and Izzy believable. Graham’s hero and heroine are going through the motions. There are some amusing moments in the first half, but there are also things that annoyed the heck out of me, like the plucking. Izzy is TINY, but curvaceous, and Rafiq likens her size to that of a child’s once too often for my taste. Then, he also keeps “plucking” her from things, like chairs, sofas, etc. He’s kind of nice and protective, but the plucking must stop, I thought. To give Graham credit, Izzy has a bad temper and takes it out on Rafiq, which is amusing but insufficient to bring this dud out of the murk of plucking. The second half was skim-inducing because Graham does this ground-covering-time thing where Izzy and Rafiq travel to England, then back to Zenara, then back to England and Izzy gets bigger and bigger: tiny person, huge twins, after all. The second half is definitely of the voice telling you the story rather than any development: these two realize early on they love the other and well, there’s not much to it after that, so let’s summarize the plot. With Miss Austen, we say Cinderella’s Royal Secret “had a high claim to forbearance,” Emma.

Lynne Graham’s Cinderella’s Royal Secret is published by Harlequin Books. It was released in May and may be found at your preferred vendor. I received an e-galley from Harlequin, via Netgalley.

This was a decent read. It was light and quick to read. The characters were likable and the overall plot was good. I recommend.
**I voluntarily read and reviewed this book

Lynne Graham can be a hit or miss for me. This one was somewhere in the middle. One night stand-a pregnancy and a marriage of convenience. Little drama or angst. But two very likeable characters with not cheating or others in between their time together.

There's a little bit of a hint about Izzy having a sister who sounds like her story might be a bit deeper and complicated than this one-now I am going to keep my eye out for that one!

Cinderella’s Royal Secret by Lynne Graham was a quick, easy and sweet read about two people who were not looking for each other. The Crown Prince Sheikh Rafiq needs to find a new wife. A widower who is not happy to marry again, finds Izzy Campbell as the perfect last fling. But when she becomes pregnant, everything changes. Very little angst, lots of sweet and charming.

Happy reading!

I loved this book. It is a quick read. Izzy leads a tough life healing to support her parents. She is cleaning when she walks in on a naked hand eating out of the shower. The attraction is very strong. It leads to a dinner and a fabulous night of steamy sex. She finders herself pregnant with no help. She beings to search for whom the man was. He was a sheik. She purchases a one way ticket to see him thinking he will cover the ticket back home. Let's just say it doesn't go as planned, At the airport she makes a filly and it leads to everyone thinking they are married. As they get to know each other the love blossoms. The quintessential fairy tale.

Typical Harlequin romance. Picked this to read for a change of pace. Usual Sheik story. Was what I expected.

I love this author... she has a way of writing a Harlequin romance that I can’t put down. In this book Izzy has exams and shows up to clean the rooms late when she finds the suite already occupied. Stepping out of the shower is a hot Adonis that demands her services to keep her close. Sparks fly and condoms break. Chemistry in this one is hot and the angst kept low. Four stars of fun!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC to read and offer an opinion. These are always a quick and fun read!

I really didn't like this one at all. The story didn't catch my interest.

I so wanted to like this one but unfortunately, I didn't.

This one was cute! An unplanned pregnancy and a royal family, it was cute! Rafiq is a widower and going to take over the throne in a few years. His first marriage was a loveless one and in order to allow his teenage brother the freedom he so desperately desired he agreed to marry again.
Izzy is a twin and a hard worker. She is going to college and bombarded with exams. So when she is going to her cleaning job and she is suprised with the bathroom guy! Embarrassed she immediately makes a deal with him so he doesn't get her in trouble with her employer. So they start talking and one thing led to another they end up in bed. He being the heir to the throne takes off to his country and she returns to her normal life working and exams. Later on she discovers she pregnant from their one night adventure. Izzy determined to tell Rafiq goes to his country and thats when everything starts! A quick read and very entertaining and lovable! I would definitely check into other books by this author!

Girl meets prince, gets preggos and they live happily ever after. I don’t fully get how this is a Cinderella story besides the fact that the hero is a prince. I LOVE trashy romances but I honestly didn’t like this one. I found the heroine to be annoyingly insecure - the worst possible character trait.

Huh. Okay, I admit it has been a while since I read HP romances, but I don’t think I ever read about a Hero who married at age 16. So yeah, it was a forced/loveless marriage and he is now a widower, but still… That part kinda ruined it for me because I sort of prefer my MCs to be heart free and to have only ever married each other… Okay, moving on.

So hero is looking for wife # 2 and decides to have a last fling before he goes off the market. Enter heroine who is not looking for anything permanent but that changes once she becomes pregnant.
I liked the story. There’s no big drama or asshole moves. Hero is really sweet and it was a nice way to pass a rainy afternoon.

Safety: No cheating, No OW/OM drama.

Your typical average trashy romance novel. If you need a quick fix for exaggerated descriptions and burning passion look no further! Izzy and Raz have a lot of great chemistry which continues despite the fact that they have to deal with an unexpected pregnancy from their one night stand. I will say that the heroine in this particular novel is very immature, constantly complaining (without communicating why) so be prepared for constant whining. I was given an early copy in exchange for an honest review. 3 out of 5 stars.

Delightful, low-angst, Sheikh romance

Izzy Campbell is an extremely innocent, 21-year-old, British woman. She is very close to her parents, her paraplegic younger brother, and especially her twin sister. Everyone in her family is loving and loyal to every other member of the family. While studying to become an elementary school teacher, Izzy shares an apartment with her twin sister and supports herself, as well as occasionally sending money to her cash-strapped parents, by working as a maid for an elite cleaning service. While running late from an exam one night, she rushes in well past her allocated time slot to clean a penthouse apartment, which is the most prestigious of her regular assignments. Unfortunately, when she attempts to clean the en suite bathroom connected to the master bedroom, the most gorgeous man she has ever seen is just stepping out of the shower! At first he is very angry at her for invading his privacy, and bawls her out in a foreign language. But after she explains her situation, he calms down. And, instead of calling up her boss and getting her fired, he says he will excuse her embarrassing mistake if she makes it up to him by cooking him lunch. He even offers to pay her extra for doing so. Extremely grateful to both stay out of trouble and earn some badly needed income, Izzy happily accepts. She asks the handsome stranger what she should call him, and he introduces himself as simply, Rafiq, with no last name given.

Crown Prince Rafiq, heir apparent of the fictional Middle Eastern kingdom, Zenara, is a 28-year-old, childless widower who hopes to have one last fling before he must do his royal duty and remarry in order to produce an heir to the throne. His first marriage, which lasted 10 years from the time he was only 16, was very unhappy, and he is greatly dreading marrying again. The tiny, beautiful, adorably unaffected redhead before him seems to be ideal, one-night-stand material. He is more attracted to her than he has ever been to any woman. And after dinner together and a long, friendly chat, Izzy seems quite willing to go to bed with him.

Izzy has never previously had the time or interest to have sex with any man, but it is overwhelmingly clear to her that Rafiq is someone extraordinarily special. Besides being as handsome as a film star, he’s very friendly and attentive. It’s rather overwhelming that he’s obviously someone quite wealthy and important, but other than his initial, justified, tirade at her invading his bathroom, he has not been at all arrogant or entitled in his attitude. She’d be a fool to pass up a chance for her first time to make love to be with an amazing man like this. And she’s certainly prepared for a sexual adventure, because she started the pill a while back just in case the right man came along.

Unfortunately for Izzy, after the most mind-blowing introduction to sex imaginable, Rafiq informs her this is a one-off. And to add injury to insult, he tells her the condom broke! She assures Rafiq she will be all right, because she’s on the pill, only to realize, too late, that a recent round of antibiotics interfered with its effectiveness when she ends up pregnant—with twins! She needs to inform Rafiq immediately that he’s going to be a father, but she has no contact information for him, so with intrepid determination, she sets out to track him down.

Rafiq is not a typical HP, alphahole hero, and is actually quite Beta. Which I personally enjoyed as a nice change of pace in a classic, LG, shotgun-wedding, marriage-of-convenience plot. Izzy is also one of LG’s stronger, assertive heroines, and I liked and admired her very much.

I am happy to report that this is actually a “King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid” fairytale rather than a Cinderella plot because, thank goodness, there is no wicked stepmother or wicked stepsisters. In fact, unusually for LG, there is no female antagonist at all. LG is quite fond, in her more melodramatic romances, of creating female villains in the form of a narcissistic, user mother or sister of the heroine, or a superciliously disapproving mother or sister of the hero, or a jealous Other Woman. Instead, the main romantic conflicts in this book reside almost entirely in the cultural and class differences between the hero and heroine.

As always with LG, the sex scenes in this book are quite sensuous without ever being crude. There is no cheating, and during their separation early in the book, both are celibate.

I look forward to reading the second book in this duology, which stars Izzy’s twin sister. Maya is a beautiful, brainy geek, which is one of my favorite types of heroines. I can’t wait!

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 4 stars
Hero: 4 stars
Subcharacters: 4 stars
Romance Plot: 4 stars
Writing: 4 stars
Overall: 4 stars

Rafiq is quite considerate, ‘you can shout after you have eaten,’ Rafiq pointed out smoothly. ‘I promise not to deprive you of the opportunity.’ I liked this book, I liked Rafiq.

Izzy works as a cleaner while going to school to finish her degree. Her hours are structured such that the apartments she cleans are always empty when she goes in. Unfortunately on the one day when she's running late she comes in to find her gorgeous client emerging from the shower. Little does she know that Rafiq is the ruler of a small desert kingdom who's on a business trip but also looking to have one last fling before succumbing to an arranged dynastic marriage.
Izzy comes back to cook dinner and spends an unforgettable night in Rafiq's bed which leaves her with an unexpected surprise. Determined she makes her way to Rafiq's desert kingdom to inform the father to be the happy news and faints on arrival making a public announcement. What she doesn't know is that Rafiq thinks he's sterile so her announcement stirs up a hornet's nest.
I am not judgmental about how there's always a virgin and a sophisticated billionaire who almost always seems to get the girl pregnant. I started reading harlequins as my first taste of romance as a young teenage and continue to love reading them for the escape they offer.

This is Izzy and Rafiq’s story. He is a crown prince and she cleans apartment. She stumbles upon Him coming out of the shower. He asks her to cook for him. They have a one night stand. She finds out she is pregnant. She goes to his country to tell him and finds out he is a prince. He talks her into marrying him. There relationship has a lot of sex and misunderstandings. I loved the story. I can’t wait for the next book in the series.