The books in this series all follow a formula but the proportions of the parts in it kept shifting further and further to the point where this one is almost unrecognizable compared to the first few.

The basic concept was to start with a character that suffers a lot of hardships and was generally dealt a shitty hand but tries to be a decent person despite all that. Then this character gets involved with one of the royal families many of which are a bunch of incredibly cool and quirky people and suddenly find themselves in a high-stakes high-reward situation where they can use their incredible talent to actually make a difference while also getting the prince/princess in the process.
These stories felt a bit like they are built on the idea of karma. But not as punishment but as a deserved windfall.

The romance and family part of these stories was always incredibly cheesy and almost unbearably sweet, but this was balanced out by the difficult and sometimes very dark parts.
But throughout the series, this dark part of the story kept shrinking to the point where this one ultimately mutated into a cheesy cheese wish fulfillment story about getting everything, riches, new friends, a loving family, finding the love of your life, literally becoming a monarch, etc. with very little of the depth and intricate character work which initially drew me into the series.

It's just straight-up lazy honestly.
I feel bad to some degree for calling this lazy because the author clearly did what she did with all the books and dove fairly deep into the specializations of the characters (rescue diving etc. in this case) and is still able to write convincing professionals at least to a layperson like me.
So it's still not even close to the level of most generic romance authors that don't give a shit about anything.
I want to acknowledge that. But it nonetheless feels like so much less effort was put into these later books, especially this one.
I want to feel the emotional rollercoaster of the heart-wrenching downward spiral of the MCs life rapidly approaching rock bottom and then a chance presents itself. An opportunity where the MC gets the chance to prove their metal, gain the recognition they deserve, and fight together with the romantic interest through adversity towards a deserved happy ending.
That is the formula (with minor variations here and there) that captured me.
But this book just skipped the first parts and basically starts with the final stretch towards the happy end which I think is just boring without any of the spice before that.
It's basically romance cheese front to back. The characters all collectively act way too blasée about the supposed danger to convince me that the token villain is an actual threat.

Maybe that is the part that drew the biggest crowd to this series and it really doesn't need more than this bare minimum saccharine love story to keep its fans. But I was looking forward to much more than this. ( )

Other people have complained that this book didn't read like others in the series. That might be because it is a different book with different characters!

***Spoilers***


I really liked that it didn't start in the Royal States. I have been wondering what is going on in the rest of the world. There were a couple of questions I still had at the end of the book such as who in the RPS Main detail was helping Uncle Carl. We were told he was the mastermind but who were his minions other than the traitors in Turkey? Also what happened to the two brothers? If Uncle Carl abused tham, did they never tell their father? That would have been motive enough for him to go against his brother. Bonds was a really good book. It was nice seeing Montana and Texas at a later time in their lives. Ms. Blaine, Please continue to write these. These and the Magical comedies (with a body count) are some of the only boks I buy rather than just reading from Kindle Unlimited. ( )

I really like the rescue diver, and his doctor partner is fascinating. That whole family are - they've accepted the price of their magic. The enemy is _nasty_, and is dealt with beautifully (in several senses!). ( )