Once Ghosted, Twice Shy: A Reluctant Royals Novella; Alyssa Cole

“Once Ghosted, Twice Shy” is my first Alyssa Cole book. So many of my friends love her romances so it’s about time I gave her a try! But of course, I decided to challenge myself further with reading her standalone, sapphic novella in her Reluctant Royals series rather than one of the main books. I’m still a bit uncertain about this author, but I think the fault is mine with starting where I did. This cute little story follows Likotsi, assistant most high to the prince, and Fabiola, an aspiring Instagram model and jewelry maker who both swipe right knowing that their initial meeting was just going to be a fling. But these captivating and beautiful women end up needing and wanting so much more from each other. I like the dual timeline POV and how that weaved these characters stories together and gave them a history that is otherwise so hard to establish in a novella, but personally, I don’t think the novella format worked for me.

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I am discovering I am just too much a fan of the slow burn novel, both with stories and romances. I need that tension to be built up and teased out, and you just can’t do that in a novella. However, this was a delightful, quick little read with just enough spice to definitely intrigue me toward the authors’ novel length romances! I liked the second chance romance aspect of this story and thought it was very well done, and also thought the subtle attention to detail was fantastically done, I just had a hard time being fully invested in these characters romance. Which is too bad because they were such interesting characters that probably just needed a longer novel to show them off, which, ultimately, is a good thing! Overall though, this was good but not the wow factor I was expecting with how much my friends love this author, hence the 3.5 stars, but the writing was lovely and easy so I will be checking out more of this authors work in the future.