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Series: Seven Brides for Seven Mothers #8
Publication date: February 1st, 2023
Synopsis:
Queen Charlotte of Malquar has been hard at work setting up all her children, but so far, she's been unable to find someone for Sophie.
Princess Sophie was supposed to be the second royal sibling to marry, but she broke her engagement when she found out her fiancé was cheating on her.
Sophie has all but given up hope of finding her own fairytale ending. That is, until a mystery bouquet of roses shows up at the palace. The note says they're from Arlo Hammond. After years of pining for the man thought was her everlasting love, Sophie finally released all thoughts of Arlo, only to have him show up again thirteen years later. Why?
Will Arlo's explanation win Sophie's forgiveness? Will she give him another chance and find her own happy ending at last? Or will the heartache of the past be too much to forgive?
Find out in the final installment of Dineen's bestselling and deliciously romantic Seven Brides for Seven Mothers series!
Available at:
Excerpt
"I'm sick to death of this place," I complain to my best friend and roommate for the three plus years I've been at university. I'm currently pacing back and forth across our tiny parlor like I'm trying to get enough friction going to start a bonfire.
All six feet of Avery are stretched out on our velvet tufted sofa. She's so tall, her bare feet, full-on with French pedicure, and hanging over the edge. She runs her fingers through her long, dark hair and fashions a ponytail before twisting it and tying it in a knot on top of her head. "It doesn't help that people are always trying to catch you doing something newsworthy so they can sell it to the tabloids."
"I scratched my nose in Biology last week and swear I saw at least three different flashes go off. I've been a nervous wreck waiting to see who's going to publish one of the photos with a headline, 'Princess Sophie is a Nose Picker!'"
Avery laughingly says, "I walked around with a wedgie for an entire afternoon because I was worried someone would take my picture and alert the world that Princess Sophie's best friend is a butt picker."
"Ha ha." I roll my eyes. "We've been friends for over three years. Surely you've seen how hard this all is on me."
"Soph." She pushes herself up into a sitting position. "I don't think anyone would believe that it's hard being you."
I spin around so fast I become a little dizzy. Grabbing a hold of the back of the sofa to steady myself, I ask, "Are you serious right now?"
"I know the press is a royal pain." She stops to giggle at her pun. "But other than that, you've got to admit your life is pretty sweet."
"Which parts?" My hands are propped up on my overly curvaceous hips as I demand to know how my life could look good to anyone.
"How about the fact that you're an honest to God princess? To the average bear, that's a pretty cool thing."
"I think you're letting your American sensibilities lead you astray. I assure you, most of the people in Malquar only care about me because of who my parents are. I'm of no interest in my own right. In fact, no one would even know who I was if I weren't in the location they expected to find me in."
As she stands up, I feel a wave of pure envy wash through me. Avery is as thin and graceful as a gazelle. She's also so comfortable in her own skin; I sometimes want to punch her on principle.
"What do you say we put that hypothesis to the test?"
"What test?" I ask, more than a little nervously. Avery is the queen of outrageous ideas. Like the time she suggested we go out for a night on the town totally commando. She'd gotten it into her head that if the Kardashians could do it, so could we.
When I told her I had left my panties at home, the truth is, I wore my underthings with the most coverage, which turns out to have been a good thing. The picture that showed up in the next morning's paper was one of me spinning on the dance floor with my skirt practically above my ears. I can only imagine the horror had I been butt-naked from the waist down. Kim Kardashian might be audacious enough to pull off something like that. I am not.
"If no one would know who you were, I say we go somewhere and see if that's true."
"I'm listening..." I should not be letting this woman lead me astray, but I really want to hear the plan before I pooh-pooh it.
"Let's leave town for a week. We'll tell our professors we've come down with some horribly infectious plague and we've been ordered to quarantine ourselves."
"Which plague would that be?" Look at me, still not shooting her down. The desire to experience total anonymity is too much temptation to pass up.
She pulls out her phone and types away before answering, "I'm going to go with German measles. It says here that it's usually mild, but that it's easily spreadable. They recommend one week's isolation from the onset of symptoms."
"Aren't German measles the same thing as rubella? I think we were vaccinated for that as children."
"No one's ever going to put that together," she tells me. "So, let's find out if you're right. The worst-case scenario is that you're outed. The best case? A whole week of being someone else."
"I'm in," I decide before fully weighing the odds of trying to perpetrate such a scheme. After all, I'm twenty-one-years old, and arguably the most boring woman on the planet.
WHITNEY DINEEN loves to laugh, play with her kids, bake, and eat french fries--not always in that order.
Whitney is a multi-award-winning author of romcoms, non-fiction humor, and middle reader fiction. Basically, she writes whatever the voices in her head tell her to.
She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband, Jimmy, where they raise children, chickens, and organic vegetables.
Gold Medal winner at the International Readers' Favorite Awards, 2017.
Silver Medal winner at the International Readers' Favorite Awards, 2015, 2016.
Finalist RONE Awards, 2016.
Finalist at the IRFA 2016, 2017.
Finalist at the Book Excellence Awards, 2017.
Finalist Top Shelf Indie Book Awards, 2017.
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