Book Review: The Prince and the Player By Nora Phoenix

book cover for The Prince and the Player By Nora Phoenix

The Prince and the Player is a fun, lighthearted romance book, with vibes similar to the movie The Prince and Me as well as Red White and Royal Blue. We get dual alternating POVs from the two main characters, Farron and Tore. Farron is a senior in college from Ohio and captain of the soccer team. Tore is a prince of Norway who enrolls in the same university as Farron and joins the soccer team. With Tore quickly becoming a rising star on the team, the two clash almost instantly. Farron immediately seems to dislike Tore, both because of Tore’s talent on the field and Farron’s perception of Tore’s wealth and privilege.

I inhaled this book, reading it pretty much in one sitting. I thought both main characters were well written, and I particularly liked Tore, who just seemed so sweet and thoughtful. Farron, while grumpy at times, was also likable as a character and I think we get a lot of depth from them both beyond just grumpy/sunshine. Though they both act like idiots at certain points of the books, I’m glad we get to see them at their highs and lows.

I’m a soccer fan, and though I usually don’t read that many sports romances, I actually loved that aspect of this! Having to work together as a team while they work through their feelings put a really interesting spin on things!

The only real negatives were that there were a few cringey bits of dialogue that had me rolling my eyes a bit and one scene which made me angry. In a heated discussion about wealth with Farron, Tore argues that ‘not all rich people are bad, a lot of them are really charitable, there’s just a few bad apples’ which left a sour taste in my mouth. Do we really need Tore to be arguing in support of extremely rich people? Unless this book is being marketed to billionaires it seems unnecessary, and really took me out of what otherwise was a very pleasant read.

But overall I really enjoyed this book! It’s the first in a new series and I will definitely be reading the next one when it is published!

I received this book from NetGalley as an ARC. All opinions are my own.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Rating: 4 stars

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