A Prince of a Guy is a humorous and well-written book, but as a romance it fails utterly. The action is driven by considerations of plot rather than character, which leaves our protagonists doing things that no one I know would ever do, for reasons that don’t make sense.

Kate Stonewall is a psychologist and radio personality whose best-selling self-help book counsels women to look carefully at a man before marrying him. Makes sense to me. Kate learned this the hard way. She was scarred by her relationship with her husband, who – are you ready for this? – liked sports, and died. The heartless monster. Because of this experience, she is violently prejudiced against sports and men who like sports, to the extent of discouraging her small son from playing in Little League, even though he adores baseball.

The focus of Kate’s resentment is Jeff Hardin, who hosts a sports radio show and lives next door to her. Jeff has a great body, a college education, a good job and a great salary; he loves kids and wants commitment and a family. But because he likes sports, Kate feels entitled to treat him like scum. She is nasty and rude to him at every possible opportunity, and makes no secret of the fact that she thinks he’s a knuckle-dragging moron. “The man was a prole,” she thinks, “and his presence next door had probably dropped the value of her house by ten thousand dollars.” He is “a prime example of what any woman with a brain did not want.” You would think that a psychologist would have run into more serious marital problems than one spouse’s fondness for watching the game on TV, but apparently not.

Jeff is nicer than Kate, but when his girlfriend breaks up with him after reading Kate’s book, he spends a lot of time blaming Kate for butting in and ruining his relationship. This seems immature and, again, like something no real person would be likely to do. For a while Jeff and Kate make an effort to be nice to each other. They sort of become friends, and share one kiss, but pretty soon she’s going out with someone else.

This, aside from the totally contrived sports-related conflict, is the main thing that kills the romance. The hero and heroine spend almost the entire novel dating other people. Until page 124, Jeff is in a physically intimate relationship with someone other than Kate. Then on page 202, Kate meets a wonderful man, not Jeff, who she feels is her perfect match. She believes herself to be in love with this guy until page 323, and in the firmest possible manner tells Jeff to leave her alone. Then, in the last few pages of the book, Jeff and Kate get together. I’m supposed to believe that sometime during these events they fell in love, but the author was a long, long way from convincing me of that.

Rabe has an enjoyable, relaxed writing style, and she does a good job portraying Seattle in the summertime. We also meet some rather nice secondary characters, especially Kate’s neighbor Grace. But in spite of this, A Prince of a Guy is a non-romance novel. Although it’s nicely written, nothing can hide the fact that there’s a big hole where the love story is supposed to be.