Review: The Princess and the P.I. by Nikki Payne

⭐½ / 5

I went into this book so excited. The premise—a Reddit-famous amateur sleuth teaming up with a world-weary PI to solve a murder—sounded like exactly the kind of fun, high-stakes romantic caper I’d love. Unfortunately, this one didn’t quite work for me.

First, I want to say that I enjoy Nikki Payne’s writing style. She has a sharp, engaging voice, and I’ve liked her work before. The issue for me wasn’t the writing itself, but the way the story blended genres. This book tries to balance romance with a murder mystery/thriller plot, and while ambitious, it ended up feeling uneven.

The mystery side was overloaded. Instead of one clean case to unravel, there were multiple threads—murders, shady corporations, family trauma—and they didn’t always connect smoothly. At times it felt like there were answers we were supposed to already know, which left me confused. On top of that, the pacing dragged. Clues introduced early (like something disappearing in chapter one) wouldn’t resurface until the very end, making it hard to stay invested in the case when nothing was being revealed along the way.

The romance didn’t land for me either. Fiona and Maurice had potential—there were moments of banter and spark—but the chemistry never really clicked. Their dynamic often felt overshadowed by the busy mystery plot, and when the romance did come forward, it felt oddly disconnected from the rest of the story.

Characterization also gave me a bit of whiplash. Some characters would act one way in a chapter, then swing in a completely different direction in the next without enough development in between. It made it hard to buy into their emotional journeys or root for the relationship.

All of this added up to a reading experience that I wanted to love but couldn’t. I put the book down three separate times before finally admitting defeat—this was ultimately a DNF for me.

That said, I don’t think this book is a total loss. Nikki Payne took a bold risk by branching into a murder/mystery-romance hybrid, and for readers who enjoy layered plots and don’t mind waiting until the very end for all the answers, this may land better. For me, though, the execution felt too scattered, and I just couldn’t connect.

Final Thoughts: An ambitious attempt at mixing mystery and romance, but the overstuffed plot, uneven pacing, and lack of romantic cohesion made this one fall flat.