I’d give this book 3.75 stars. It started out a bit slow and the pacing of the romance was just way too fast. I was skimming a lot to get to the point. However, I did find myself rooting for Emma and Michel.

Emma is a 28 year old woman who wants to open up a culinary school, but is making do with teaching young woman how to make Korean royal foods while her aunt is the one who set up these woman to get married. Her aunt then tries to play matchmaker for Emma, when Emma meets Michel, who is a prince but he doesnt disclose that to her right away. Throughout the book, you see them start falling for each other but you also can see Emma’s worries about love and the sacrifices they must make to be together. It reinds me of long distance relationship. At the end, I cried a bit because of Emma’s talk with her dad regarding love and Michel. She was self sabotaging their relationship due to the limited time. I’m glad it worked out in the end.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the arc.

I like all the characters, especially Sophie and Gabriel! And I love that Emma always escape through cooking her favourite foods! But I just couldn’t see the chemistry between Emma and Prince Michel. I thought that they were too instalust and all the spice scenes just felt like plot fillers… and also the conflict just got super repetitive and so it was a little boring. I think I was more invested even in Sophie and Gabriel’s relationship more than Emma and Michel’s.


Thank you author, publisher and netgalley for the arc though. I’ll always be honest in my opinions.

Thank you to NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

I've been a fan of Jayci Lee since "The Dating Dare" and I keep reading more of her books. I really like that this was a quick, easy, and lighthearted read. I was able to learn more about Korean culture while also reading about two authentic characters who fall in love. They were likeable, and the development was enjoyable to witness. The ​only thing I didn't love was that I felt like the ending was rushed.

Sadly, this one didn’t work out for me! It was cute but it felt incredibly long and drawn out and I didn’t really get a lot of personality from the characters. The romance was sweet but nothing extremely memorable for me. I did love all the descriptions of food!

Thanks to the publisher for allowing me to be an early reader. All opinions are my own!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.
I love royal romances, but I just didn't enjoy this one like I thought I would.

(3.75) this book was huuuuuge in the cheese ball category (and not in a bad way). the prince and me was and is one of my favorite films, so sign me the *heck* up for a normie and secret-prince romance!!
this was so corny that i did occasionally cringe, but being that i am recently in a relationship i was giggling and kicking my feet about it!!!
there were a couple of things i wanted more out of, mainly that every conflict wrapped up neatly and quickly. i felt like there wasn’t a lot of tension because i didn’t have time to sit with any roadblocks. a few others being [spoilers ahead]: what. happened. to. the. culinary. dream?? why did both sophie AND emma give up their lives for men (i do not care about the circumstances or sacrifices said men said they were going to make)? what happened to sarah? and tbh i still don’t really get why gabriel was an asshat when he could’ve just been cold.
anyway, again, huge cheese ball, and i’m not complaining

I didn't mind this book, but it was just missing... something?

Emma and Michel were sweet, and I'm a total sucker for anything involving secret royals or chefs, so this book having both really appealed to me. I came away with a list of Korean foods to try, but not much else. The story felt a bit simplistic, with the only real conflicts being Michel telling Emma who he was and Michel wanting Emma to move to Rouleme for him. It was a light read, definitely quick to get through and I didn't particularly dislike it, it was just okay.

This was the first book I've read by Jayci Lee, and while I would read something else by her if it looked interesting, I'm not actively seeking more of her books out at this point. The writing was a bit wordy in places, but nothing too crazy. Overall, this book was fine, it just didn't stick out to me.

Thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for sending me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

DNF

I’m sorry, but this was incredibly bland and boring. I love the royalty trope, but this was a disgrace.

Watching paint dry would be more fun.

I have always been a sucker for Hallmark-esque romances involving royals in disguise, so I knew that this was going to be a fun read for me the second I read the description. Emma and Prince Michel were such a cute couple, from an awkward meet cute to their steamy physical chemistry. I did find it a little frustrating that the majority of the conflict came from Emma and Michel making assumptions about each others feelings and not actually communicating their own feelings and intentions. I would have loved to learn more about Emma's heritage and Korean royal court cuisine as a concept.

I really loved that the author included a guide to pronunciation of Korean vowels at the start of the book! I found this super helpful as my prior exposure to the Korean language has been very minimal and I did not want to be mispronouncing words as I read.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading That Prince is Mine. It is a fun and cute love story with a fair amount of spice.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC to review.

I liked the premise of this book and it was executed well enough. It did feel a lot like those Netflix Christmas movies and maybe not in the best way -- totally unrealistic and a little bizarre. But if that's your cup of tea, so be it.

This was a sweet and fluffy romance. I feel like the plot wasn’t really there and the story was lacking. The characters didn’t have too much depth and I often felt a bit bored.

This was such a cute book. I've only read one of this author's books before and I have to say I really enjoy this author's writing style as well as their characters. I loved the characters and I think their love story was adorable.

The slow burn romance in THAT PRINCE IS MINE makes the characters earn their HEA. I loved every bit of the Korean influence and discussion of cuisine. The heroine and her extended family is fascinating and authentic. I am a sucker for a good prince-themed romance. But there was a a lot of chitchat and cute date moments without a lot of action in the first 60% of the book. The hero was almost too kind with moments of jealousy that felt forced as if trying to spice up the feelings more between the characters. I was sad the plot line fell a bit flat for me with him as a generic "crown prince" from a made-up small European country who wants to find his own love and not accept the marriage arranged for him. That part of the story with a prince whose identity is incognito in the USA and falls in love with a "normal girl" was cliche. Their final conflict was tough to swallow since, I mean, who really knows if they want to give up their life and marry a prince after 3 months of knowing him? Then again, who says no to that kind of adventure with the buildup of so much chemistry between the characters?

Overall a sweet weekend read that moves slow as we expect with any slow burn contemporary and eventually a rewarding HEA.

Oh my goodness, what a fun story! I absolutely loved Emma and Michel, their humor, and journey together. They both seem like truly wonderful people and compliment each other wonderfully. I loved the dynamics between Sophie and Gabriel as well, and just loved Emma’s family. A great story of opposites attract!

that prince in mine follows emma, a korean cuisine instructor, and michel, a price, in this light fluffy romance.

i just don’t think this book is for me, for how long it is i don’t think there’s any sort of depth to any of the characters, the love was extremely one dimensional with absolutely no connection between the characters.

i will say i did love the incorporation of food, and the shout-out to h-mart <3 but besides that i think this brings up my new discovery of hating books set in the city i live in. i think this story-line had a lot of potential because i liked emma but in the end this turned out to be extremely boring and incredibly forgettable.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I truly could not put this book down, I stayed up wayyyyy too late to get as far as I could in each go. Michel and Emma are both lovable characters who are in touch with their guiding values (my therapist knows I could *NEVER* be that honest and confident in mine), and have to wrestle with balancing those, attraction, and family responsibilities. As always there is a beautiful tie in of food at the center of this book, because would it be a Jayci Lee novel withOUT a central through line of food being relevant? Did it make me want to book a cooking class immediately? Absolutely.

3 stars!
Thank you to NetGalley for sending me this book!!


I've never read a fiction book that made me this hungry before but the food descriptions in here were next level and clearly a passion of the author's. It was lovely being able to step into Emma and Michel's world, even if their constant miscommunication left me far more stressed than I was when I began reading!

"You're the best decision I've ever made."

-royal court cuisine artist meets professor/prince in disguise 👩‍🍳🫅
-loved learning about the Korean culture and appreciated the representation
-Michel and Emma had such instant chemistry! Really enjoyed their dates and them getting to know one another 🩷
-thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC ✨

"What. Were. You. Thinking?" she shouted with such outrage that he cringed away from her.
"I... about which part?" He'd made so many mistakes, he couldn't figure out which one she was angry about. Maybe all of them?

(they can be so funny sometimes)

The romance itself holds up well and was sweet, but if you take that aspect away, there's not much to this book. It's really however many pages of sweet moments/thoughts between the two characters and nothing else. The plot was an interesting idea, but it wasn't fleshed out enough to have as much depth as it could have. Michel never communicated with his dad about what he wanted (and I'm still a little salty we never actually saw that conversation like come on it would have been fascinating to read, especially since Michel makes such a big deal about it)

I love a good story where the big fight leads to an emotional sucker punch, but this sort of dropped the ball. In fact, I didn't feel that connected to the characters. With the conflict, Emma has several complicated feelings but she cycles through them so quickly I couldn't quite connect with them. Plus, it wasn't really hurt or pain or anything like that, just masks for some other emotion. And with Michel, sure, he felt bad, but by the time we got to his pov Emma had already made up her mind, so his perspective was lackluster.

The whole book was more of a "meh" kind of good - up until the last 4%. The characters were suddenly much funnier than they were before?

The idea is cute and the characters have a sweet romance, but I think there could have been more depth to both the plotline and to the characters.

thank you Netgalley for the free arc

I liked this book a lot and couldn't stop reading it! It was occasionally difficult to tell the perspective of the book but after a few sentences i could normally catch on. It had the perfect amount of characters to keep the story interesting but not confusing.