Disgraced etiquette expert Ali Spencer has tucked her tail
and run back home from Miami's South Beach to Nashville,
where she is helping her aunt to save the flagging Spencer
School of Etiquette— at least until she can figure out her
next career move.
Detective Hunter Coleman is frustrated by his girlfriend
Erica's social climbing ways. He remembers earlier days in
their relationship, before she inherited a boatload of money
and decided she would scale the Nashville social register or
be damned trying. When Erica gifts Hunter with etiquette
lessons so he won't embarrass her along the social circuit,
he encounters Ali and, despite the best of manners on both
parts, the sparks begin to fly.
Phyllis Bourne has written a fun and delightful novel about
two people who fall in love despite their own misgivings.
Ali has no desire to get involved with someone who's already
involved with—or rebounding from—someone else. Besides, she
has to figure how to salvage the career destroyed by her
ex-husband and her ex-best friend, not to mention her trust
in men. Similarly, Hunter has no desire to get involved
with someone new while he's still in a relationship, even if
his relationship has been shot and killed and only the
carcass remains, a fact everyone seems to acknowledge except
him. Both Ali and Hunter are to be commended for their
ethics, and forgiven for the attraction that won't go away.
Equally enjoyable was the subplot about the mysterious
bandit. New homeowners in subdivisions still under
construction will rethink any laissez-faire attitudes they
might have toward home security after reading this story.
Despite there being a few hot love scenes, the tone of
OPERATION PRINCE CHARMING is still very sweet. It would be
great fun to reconnect with Hunter and Ali by way of
Hunter's co-workers in the Nashville police department or
perhaps Ali's etiquette students. Even if we never see them
again, it's satisfying to go along for the ride as Ali finds
her prince in Hunter.
With his fiancée out hunting bigger game, Detective Hunter
Coleman realizes that good manners are no match for basic
instincts, and he's got all the charm he needs to win the
woman he really loves.