The Princess Wore Plaid by Karen Hawkins

Title: The Princess Wore Plaid (The Oxenburg Princes #2.5)

Author: Karen Hawkins
Publisher: Pocket Star

Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance, Regency

Publication: March 21, 2016

My Rating: 4/5

Source: Publisher on NetGalley

A princess once bejeweled but now tattered… 

Royal princess Tatiana Romanovin is the beautiful, wealthy, and spoiled favorite of the King of Oxenburg. On her way to her cousin’s wedding in the Scottish highlands, she and her entourage are held up by a gang of ruffians. Frightened, her servants flee, and Tatiana soon finds herself alone in an inn with no servants, no funds, and no proof of her identity. Destitute, she accepts the offer from a sympathetic (but unbelieving) innkeeper to work for her room and board while she waits for an answer to the missive she’s sent to her cousin Prince Nikolai. With no other recourse, Tatiana scrubs floors and dirty linens, waiting for her prince to come…

A proud lord once lost and now found…

After a brutal, bloody battle with the French Navy left Lord Buchan limping and surly, abandoned by his betrothed because of his twisted leg, his lordship hides away at his manor house in the countryside. He leaves only once a week to eat at the local inn, drawn by the expert cooking of the innkeeper’s wife. One day, Buchan arrives to find that the innkeeper has a new servant, a beautiful scullery maid with a queenly air, and flashing green eyes that leave him breathless and increasingly aware of his lonely existence…

Love may find them yet…

The challenge of winning his way into Tatiana’s heavily protected heart stirs Buchan back to life…but can he and his twisted leg—and broken heart—win a proud princess whose only goal is to leave Scotland and return to the court where she’s the crowning jewel?

**I received a free eARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

Time for another story inspired by Beauty and the Beast!

This was a very enjoyable and light-hearted read! I loved the main characters and was rooting for them all along, even if Lord Buchan had a crazy temper sometimes... But he's really not to blame, is he?

When he meets Tatiana for the first time, he immediately falls in love with her. Yup, I'm all about the instalove, don't judge. He can't stop thinking about her, which also makes him forget the pain caused by his injured leg, and he tries to find ways to see her more often. One of them is putting his library at her disposal. I mean, his HUGE library. How could you not love this guy?

Tatiana gradually starts to like Lord Buchan and, even though he's injured, she sees him as a very strong man. She also understands that he's not dangerous, no matter how impulsive he can be sometimes.

Although Tatiana's story about being a lost princess is a little crazy, Lord Buchan really wants to believe her, so he agrees to consider her story to be true, until proven wrong. He also starts to read about her country, which nobody has heard about, and look for clues about the accident that made her get lost.

It was also very nice seeing her learn so much, because having to become a maid after having been a princess her whole life has taught her a lot, now she knows she's capable of more and enjoys the little daily challenges.

But since Tatiana's a princess, she has to leave someday, and she's waiting for her cousin to find her, which is why Buchan doesn't want to get attached, he knows he's going to lose her. Although let's be honest now, he just can't keep his distance, and Tatiana doesn't want to leave him either.

The ending was a little bit different from what I was expecting, but maybe it's the only way things would've worked out? I also realized that we never get to know anything about his betrothed who left him, I don't think she's even mentioned, but it's all right, I just wanted to read about his love for Tatiana, to be honest.

Any other stories inspired by Beauty and the Beast you might recommend?

Thank you for reading! Bye-Bye! ♥