THE PRINCE & THE APOCALYPSE: A NOVEL, by Kara McDowell, Wednesday Books, July 11, 2023, Paperback, $12 (young adult)
An American girl teams up with the British crown prince in hopes of make it home before the end of the world in The Prince & the Apocalypse, by Kara McDowell.
Wren Wheeler has flown 5,000 miles across the ocean to discover she’s the worst kind of traveler: the kind who just wants to go home. Her senior-year trip to London was supposed to be life-changing, but by the last day, Wren’s perfectly-planned itinerary is in tatters. There’s only one item left to check off: breakfast at The World’s End restaurant. The one thing she can still get right.
The restaurant is closed for renovations ― of course ― but there’s a boy there, too. A very cute boy with a posh British accent who looks remarkably like the errant Prince Theo, on the run from the palace and his controlling mother. When Wren helps him escape a pack of tourists, the Prince scribbles down his number and offers her one favor in return. She doesn’t plan to take him up on it ― until she gets to the airport and sees cancelled flights and chaos. A comet is approaching Earth, and the world is ending in eight days. Suddenly, that favor could be her only chance to get home to her family before the end of the world.
Wren strikes a bargain with the runaway prince: if she’ll be his bodyguard from London to his family’s compound in Santorini, he can charter her a private jet home in time to say goodbye. Traveling through Europe by boat, train, and accidentally stolen automobile, Wren finds herself drawn to the dryly sarcastic, surprisingly vulnerable Theo. But the Prince has his own agenda, one that could derail both their plans. When life as they know it will be over in days, is it possible to find a happy ending? —Synopsis provided by Wednesday Books
I read The Prince & the Apocalypse on an ill-fated camping trip during which it poured half the time and two of the three people on said trip ended up sick. I was glad for the distraction, and so drawn-in that I finished the book in 24 hours.
Even though the apocalypse genre has pretty much been covered, everything about The Prince & the Apocalypse just works. And works in a way that you can see it play out cinematically. It’s a fast-paced high-stakes rom-com that covers all the bases.
The two unlikely allies-turned-love-interests are Wren and the Prince (Theo). They’ve both got a whole lot of baggage, which makes for interesting twists throughout the novel. You finish really feeling like you know who Wren is, and wishing you knew more about Theo.
The ending of The Prince & the Apocalypse is so unexpected that the thought of it being a standalone is kind of infuriating. Pretty please, Kara McDowell, write a sequel.
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