Playing the Palace

I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at the ‘commoner dates a prince’ setup—until the first chapter, when Rudnick’s protagonist, Carter, a 40-something event planner with the energy of a man who’s seen *too much*, immediately won me over. This isn’t a Cinderella story; it’s a story about two messed-up people (one just happens to be royal) stumbling into something real amid the chaos of viral fame and palace intrigue. Urie’s narration sells it: his Carter sounds like your funniest, most exhausted friend recounting a wild night over drinks, while his Prince Edgar is all clipped vowels and repressed longing. The chemistry between them in dialogue scenes is electric, though I’ll dock half a point for Urie’s occasional over-enunciation of punchlines—some jokes land better when they’re not *performed* quite so hard. The audiobook’s production is clean, but the real star is Rudnick’s dialogue, which zips along like a screwball comedy script. The middle act drags slightly when the plot pivots to royal family drama (a subplot about the queen’s corgis feels like a missed opportunity for more bite), but the final act redeems it with a third-act twist that’s both heartfelt and hilariously meta. If you love romances with teeth—or just want to hear Michael Urie do a spot-on British aristocrat—this is a delight. But if you’re looking for saccharine escapism, skip it: *Playing the Palace* is too smart, and too funny, to be that simple.