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Lonely European princess finds purpose and romance when she volunteers for a humanitarian organization in East Africa. With the weight of an entire kingdom--Liechtenstein, to be exact--on her slender shoulders, her Serene Highness Christianna knows that her life will never be her own. Even though women are forbidden to rule the tiny principality, her profligate older brother and royal heir Freddy shows so little interest in his responsibilities that her widower father, Prince Hans Josef, looks to her to fulfill obligations. Resigned to a life of endless state dinners and hospital tours, the 23-year-old Berkeley grad's life takes an unexpected turn after she watches children die on TV in a bloody Russian terrorist standoff. Galvanized into action, and with two strapping bodyguards in tow, she meets up with the Red Cross in Russia and does what she can to ease suffering, finding the experience far more meaningful than anything else she has done. Back at her Vaduz palace, her father agrees to let her again join the organization to assist with a hospital project in Eritrea, with the understanding that once the year is up she will devote all her time to her royal duties. In Africa, she hides her identity and passionately throws herself into the work, bonding with her multicultural colleagues who know her only as "Cricky." She also meets a handsome, young American doctor, Parker Williams, who is himself quickly smitten by the compassionate young woman in braids and boots. Their love blossoms in spite of Christianna's constant awareness that she could never marry a commoner, dooming their relationship. The heartbroken lovers part when Parker has to return to his AIDS research work at Harvard. The princess leaves soon after when the camp comes under threat during a local war. But it will take more than an ocean--and generations of tradition--to keep these two crazy kids from their happy ending. Steele (Coming Out, June 2006, etc.) should get her due for the political hot-spots angle, but saintlier-than-thou sweethearts Parker and Christianna make for a particularly insipid duo. Often silly and hastily concluded tale of love vs. duty. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The latest novel by the prolific Steel follows the fortunes of the young, wealthy, and beautiful Princess Christianna, the cosseted daughter of the prince of a small European nation. Returning to the kingdom after four years spent studying in America (followed everywhere by bodyguards), the princess chafes in her gilded cage and rails against the responsibilities and insignificance of her duty-bound royal life. Determined to make a difference in the world, she successfully petitions her father to be allowed to volunteer for the Red Cross and soon finds herself in East Africa working alongside doctors and other volunteers providing relief services to AIDS victims. Inevitably, in Africa she meets and falls in love with a handsome Harvard-educated doctor and is quite happy for the first time in her life, doing hard but meaningful work and spending time with her soul mate. When violence intrudes upon this idyll, Christianna must return home, where her father promptly quashes the relationship with the commoner. As the two lovers pine for each other from opposite ends of the earth, a series of events is unleashed leaving the princess in charge of her own destiny and ultimately reuniting the pair. Steel's fans will be waiting for this one. --Kathleen Hughes Copyright 2006 Booklist

Poor Christianna, princess of Liechtenstein. Fettered by duty and tradition, her existence is an "achingly boring" slog of ribbon cuttings and state dinners, further straitened by her ever-present retinue of bodyguards and the specter of paparazzi. She longs to do something meaningful with her life; opportunity knocks when she gets a chance to volunteer at a Red Cross AIDS clinic in Africa. Bodyguards in tow, Christianna ministers to the diseased, while colleagues and African peasants alike bask in her royal glow: after all, "she was both grace and gentleness itself." There's even a handsome Doctor Without Borders to fall in love with, but alas! her father forbids her to marry a "commoner." There are further obstacles, and further global adventures. The cast is bland, the incidental shopping perfunctory, the sex tasteful and appropriate. Christianna's cousin Victoria ditzy and decadent in her jeans and tiara makes a tantalizing cameo, but Steel (550 million copies sold) spends a great deal of time on the details of Christianna's jet-set activism ("she stayed away from dairy products in Africa"). (Oct. 31) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved