Had me laughing from the first page and crying at all the tragic and joyous parts. Love the banter, the seamless storytelling, the feel good vibes, and especially loved the connection between the characters. Some good stories end too soon and I'm glad this one gave us all the HEAs instead of cutting us off before we are ready to end. Will definitely read more from Parker! ( )

This is the second in a series, but you don't have to read the first book to follow and enjoy this one (I hadn't, and now I'm looking forward to doing so). The romcom story follows two palace staff who have to fakedate in order to throw off the tabloids who are convinced one of them is having an affair with the princess's well-meaning but accident-prone husband. There are lots going on, with a surprisingly complex plot of different storylines that really brought palace life to life.

I sure hope Lia gets her own story someday. As a secondary character, she stole the show whenever she appeared.

Review copy courtesy of the publisher via Netgalley. ( )

This is set in the same world as Battle Royal, about two employees of Johnny Marchmont, the husband of Princess Rose. In response to press speculation that Johnny is having an affair with his PA, Pet, Johnny and Rosie suggest a distraction -- that Pet should fake-date Matthias, Johnny’s bodyguard.

I really enjoyed reading this! I am entertained by Parker’s descriptions and her sense of humour, and this has tropes she writes well -- namely fake-dating and a grumpy/sunshine.

I’m not as strongly invested in Pet and Matthias as a couple as I am in some of Parker’s other couples. Not sure why. I was trying to pinpoint what it is that I like so much about my favourite of Parker’s romances. One thing is the scenes where one character willingly chooses to do something they otherwise wouldn’t want to do in order to support the other, like attending an event they’d prefer to avoid, and it shows how important the other person is to them.

Codename Charming has its share of scenes where Pet and Matthias show their support for each other, I mean I am convinced that they will be an excellent Mutual Support and Appreciation Society, but those scenes didn’t have quite the same impact. For me. (Idiosyncratic reactions and all that jazz.) I suspect I would have preferred if a certain development had occurred much earlier in the narrative and so there had been more opportunity to then observe Pet and Matthias dealing with that complication together. Maybe that is why I didn’t come away with the urge to immediately reread it.

In his remote, cyborg-y way, [Matthias] did genuinely care about Johnny, however -- demonstrating that you could always find at least one point of common interest with a person. She appreciated Matthias’s dedication to his job and Johnny’s safety, even if he was about as bendable and open to negotiation as a titanium plank.
He was still looking at her, his lips disappearing into a familiar grim line. It was the same expression he’d pulled last week, after she’d proposed the idea of a game of laser tag in the palace gardens. Anyone could see that Johnny -- and Rosie -- needed a regular burst of fun and sheer silliness, or they’d never cope as well with the public side of their lives [...] If only Matthias would stop vetoing every suggestion on the grounds of safety violations and failure to follow advance protocols. What she called spontaneity, he considered a grievous insult to his previous digital clipboard of schedules and red tape.

( )

Lovely

*3.5 stars*

Lucy Parker returns with another lovely book. What stops this from being a 4 star or higher is that it took quite a bit for me to get fully into the book (unusual for a LP book). Also, the conflict didn't feel like much of one to me. I was screaming to Matthias and Pet to just talk! Lol.

But asides that, everything else was what i wanted and adored. So much adorableness ( )