Prince Malachi Van Renssalaer of Mevendia is getting married. The problem? He’s never even met his bride. His father arranged everything, right down to the marriage contract. Malachi swears to himself that he will be nothing like his father in the ways that count – including his fidelity to his wife.
Jessabelle Keller would happily spend her entire life in obscurity, but her father once saved … once saved the life of a future king. Before he dies, her father is committed to seeing that king make good on his promise to have one of his sons marry her so she would be taken care of for life.
No sooner than Prince Malachi and Jessabelle return from their honeymoon, they find themselves dealing with both private trauma and the very public drama of groundless accusations from the press. Just as they begin to weave their fragile trust back together, a ghost from the king’s past arrives and threatens everything they’ve ever held dear.
Secrets have a funny way of coming out and this one could rip the faith of the country in their leaders to shreds. Malachi is determined to protect Jessabelle no matter what it takes, but will it ever be enough for her to not feel like a Hand-Me-Down Princess?
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Malachi is the kind of hero I always enjoy reading in romance novels. From the outset, he was strong, did the right thing, and looked out for Jessabelle’s best interest. His decision on their wedding day just melted my heart. The surprise at the end made for an amazing twist.
I’m reading through the series again and love all of the books and while I think Protecting the Prince is my favorite though, because of Tony, tied with first place for this one. Carol Moncado tells a great story and it’s hard to put the books down once you start reading them!
Hand-Me-Down Princess by Carol Moncado is the fourth book in the Monarchies of Belles Montagnes series. This was one of my favorites in this series and I have to be honest it is one of the first books that I have in this series. I read the books out of order :). But anyway, Hand-Me-Down Princess was such a good book and really added to the series.
In this book, we step into a new country, Mevendia. We get to read about the second son, Malachi. Malachi never thought he would marry for anything but love, however when the king tells you to do something you do it. Jessabelle just wanted a simple life, but her father is committed to making sure that the king will have one of his sons marry her. He wants her to be taken care of, and for him that means she must marry a prince.
Malachi was so sweet, he was committed to his marriage even though he never met her before. He was such a good husband and he really cared for Jessabelle and I loved reading about them falling in love. He definitely fell for her first and I loved that he was patient with her.
Jessabelle was such a shy girl but she really wanted to make Malachi proud. Although, she had never met Malachi before she still wanted to be a good wife. It took her a little longer to fall for Malachi, but it was so fun to see her start to trust him.
Jessabelle and Malachi will have to overcome more than just figuring out their marriage. They will have to learn how to deal with being in the public eye, dealing with both private trauma and public drama. To make matters worse, ghosts from the past will come back to haunt them. I wanted so badly for Jessabella and Malachi to have a happy marriage. They truly deserve the happiness. I was so worried when things started to pick up and I couldn’t put down the book.
Hand-Me-Down Princess was my favorite book in the series. I loved how Ms. Moncado is able to write characters that you can relate to, people who you want to cheer for. You need to read this book, it was so sweet!
Sweet story
Amazing, utterly amazing.
I was very skeptical when I first started this novel, I didn’t know how it was going to go from the opening chapters; however, the deeper and deeper I read into the book the more I became hooked. The story line was very different and there was twists at every turn.
I understand that some people with look at the summary for this novel and see a “typical” princess novel, but it goes so much more deeper than anyone can even imagine. I have learned to not judge a book by it’s cover, and now I have also learned not to judge a book by the first few chapters.
Give this story a try, I promise you will not be disappointed. You have so many twists coming your way, you won’t want to put this novel down.
Great book