**Playing the Royal Game is the final story in the eight book The Santina Crown series and should be read after the rest of the series. All the other characters, and their activities, play a role in how this book progresses. I still enjoyed it without reading the others, but it was a little more difficult to keep up with all the details.**

Allegra Jackson and Prince Alessandro Santina have come to an agreement. She will pretend to be his fiance and, with her scandalous family, it won’t be long before his public demands that he break it off, leaving him some time to run his business before he has to give it up to go home and be an active member of the ruling family. After walking out of her job thanks to her creepy boss, Allegra needs to get her feet under her and decide what her future will be. It seems the perfect solution . . . until things get out of their control.

Alessandro is your typical Prince – smart, high-handed, arrogant and publicity-conscious. When he lets himself relax, though, he’s also caring, funny and sexy. It is this side, the side that Allegra first meets in London, that draws her to him. Allegra is the good one in her outrageous family – always doing the right thing and keeping herself out of trouble. She’s also normal, friendly and warm – too much so to easily become a member of the royal family.

This is a love story about what could be, hampered by expectations and being forced into a specific role. I enjoyed the conflict between letting Allegra be herself and grooming her to rule, between the man Alessandro is away from the palace and the person that will one day rule. However, I felt that there needed a bit more to the resolution moment. The ending was fulfilling but it seemed to come on too suddenly. Not having read the other stories I don’t know how much, if any, these two play in them but maybe with more background it would have seemed to flow better. It was still satisfying. And for those who read the other books in the series, there are short updates from the characters at the end that provide further tidbits on their lives.