Once upon a Prince

I bought this because it was described to me as a Hallmark holiday romance movie in book form, and while that’s true, I had no idea it was also Christian romance. And by Christian romance, I don’t mean that they occasionally thank God or go to church. I mean literally everything they do is connected back to God in some way. The plot places a big emphasis on throwing out “the plan” to embrace whatever God has planned for you (I thought the Bible said that people can ask for God’s help but still need to do the work themselves? Anyway). There’s even a whole chapter where the female lead argues that the divine right of kings is still a thing because God decides who is born when and what their destinies are. Just…yikes. I’m not against some religious background in romance novels, but this was too heavy-handed for me. I just wanted some meet-cute royal romance. I didn’t ask for a side order of preaching. 
Even putting the heavy religious parts aside, the characters are incredibly bland. Again, this is not necessarily a problem because I was expecting Hallmark holiday movie levels of writing, and they’re not exactly known for their deep characters. However, I just could not get into the romantic side of the book. We get to see both of the leads’ interior monologue about the other, but we never actually see any chemistry between them before they officially get together. I’m not saying that that this book needed to be steamy or even have them be physical at all–it is clearly aimed at the no sex before marriage audience–but it would’ve been nice to see how they work as a couple other than both of the leads saying, “Plum golly gee, they sure are pretty. Too bad there’s a law from the 1700s that says I can’t explore that at all.” There’s much more discussion about politics and restating and rehashing all the various reasons why the king-to-be should marry someone else, but I wish the time had instead been spent on making the two leads more compelling.
Also, the random interludes with the homeless woman felt like they were only there to pad out the length of the book, since she only recapped or restated things the female lead was already thinking about. There’s a part towards the beginning where the homeless woman asks the main character if she believes in “one true love,” and this statement freaks out the main character because “how could she know that?!?!?” The idea of “one true love” is pretty common, so I wasn’t sure what she was going on about. After a specific moment it’s pretty clear that she was supposed to play the “fairy godmother” role, but it just doesn’t land right.
Overall, if you are religious, this is the romance novel for you. If you’re not, it’ll probably rub you the wrong way due to the heavy-handed “give everything over to God” messaging or the plain characters whose romance isn’t all that convincing or fun to read about.