DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY

Piper’s family has been suffering since the 2008 recession, so Piper needs both a scholarship to an exclusive Washington, D.C., prep school and that school’s Bennington Journalism Endowment so she can go to Columbia.

Piper has one goal in life: to become a journalist. The white girl has edited her public high school newspaper for two years but starts off with boring, routine assignments when she transfers to Chiswick Academy. Piper instantly resents the privileges and corruption enjoyed by the wealthy students. Her goal of winning the Bennington scholarship seems blocked, as the editor of the school paper is also a contender for the prize and won’t give her any good assignments. She meets drop-dead handsome, paparazzi magnet Raf, son of the Spanish ambassador to the United States. She thinks that if she can become an insider with the students who abuse their diplomatic immunity, such as Raf, her exposé will win her the scholarship. Through her friendship with him she gathers enough damaging evidence to destroy his reputation, but predictably, she also finds herself attracted to him. Raf clearly feels the same and makes her his girlfriend in defiance of his father. Readers will have no difficulty guessing much of the subsequent plot, but only die-hard romance fans will believe the final resolution. Piper’s family’s economic woes, her work at the Yogurt Shop, and her on-the-spectrum little brother help to keep things real amid the romantic fluff.

A smoothly written, standard-issue romance.