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

In The Princess and the P.I. by Nikki Payne, Reddit detective Fiona Addai decides to take matters into her own hands and steal an invention her deceased brother helped created, which had been stolen and given to a corporation. But when the head of the corporation winds up dead himself, Fiona becomes the prime suspect.

Private investigator Maurice Bennett had worked for the murder victim and now finds himself helping Fiona to uncover the truth before it’s too late. Previously, Maurice had tried to take down the church Fiona’s father led, believing they were responsible for the death of a young woman. By helping Fiona, he believes he’ll gain more access to the church and finally be able to put that case behind him. What he doesn’t count on is Fiona’s determination to be involved in the investigation, and the more time they spend together, the blurrier the lines between them become. Maurice’s desire to clear Fiona’s name soon overshadows his need to take the down the church, while Fiona learns some hard truths about her own family.

I struggled with this one, and some of it was due to the author’s writing style, especially for the first half of the book. It often felt like it was bouncing from one thing to the next, without fully flushing out what had been going on at the time before moving on. I also often found myself frustrated with the religious aspect of it. Instead of Fiona’s father getting her a lawyer or bailing her out of jail, he tells her to pray on it. He gets mad at Maurice for helping her, but no one else, including himself, her sister, or any other member of the church, would do so. Almost everything came down to needing to obey the church, rather than to find solutions or answers to everything that was going on.

I felt little connection between Maurice and Fiona. He seemed annoyed with her the majority of the time. Fiona, for her part, does seem interested in him from the start, but seems more excited to learn how to be an actual investigator. By the end of the story, I couldn’t care either way if they were together or not. For me, there was little there to make me root for them as a couple.

I will say I enjoyed the last part of the book a lot more than the first part. It’s when the investigation really picks up, and there’s a lot less of the bouncing around I mentioned earlier. At that point though, it was too late to save it for me.

Unfortunately, this book wasn’t for me, but if you’re looking for a mystery involving murder and a church scandal with a little romance thrown in, it may be for you.

Book Info:

Publication: September 16, 2025 | Berkley |

Famed Reddit detective Fiona Addai is great at solving problems—online, that is. Cold cases, reality TV scandals, everyone calls on @Princess_PI. It’s her way of escaping her strict religious life at home and the memory of her brilliant brother’s sudden death. But when the sheltered sleuth tries to apply her inquisitive skills to real life, her plan to reclaim her late brother’s invention from the ruthless corporation that stole it goes disastrously wrong. Now, instead of getting justice, Fiona finds herself accused of murder.

Maurice Bennett is no stranger to insomnia. These days, he’s not losing sleep over the cases he’s solving—but running from the one he couldn’t. Instead, he’s been settling for small-time scandals that don’t stir up the guilt he’s buried. But when he spots Fiona Addai at the center of a murder investigation, something clicks. And for the first time in a long while, Maurice feels that old spark of intrigue.

However, Fiona is not the helpless damsel she appears to be. Sure, she needs Maurice’s help to clear her name, but she’s got conditions of her own: she wants a crash course in real-world detective work. Maurice isn’t exactly thrilled. With every late-night stakeout and tension-filled interrogation, their partnership starts to feel a little too close for comfort. To bring the real killer to light, they’ll need to trust each other and that might be the most dangerous gamble of all.