A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime

I had never read Lancaster Prep before this batch, and book two is an odd place to start, but it works as an entry because Wren and Crew were background in book one and get full stories here. A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime, second in the Lancaster Prep series, first published in 2022, follows Wren Beaumont, a rule following senior who decides to live a little before graduation, and Crew Lancaster, the heir apparent bad boy who notices her resolve and makes it his business. It is new adult romance with prep school money, explicit scenes, and more attention to consent and class than the cover promises. I finished it in two sittings and thought about it longer than expected, mostly about how Wren negotiates wanting to be good and wanting to be free at once.

Wren comes from old expectations rather than old money exactly. Her family values propriety, grades, suitable friends, a future mapped through college and marriage. She has followed the map dutifully and feels hollow about it with months left. Her decision is not rebellion so much as curiosity. What would it feel like to break one rule she chose. To kiss someone unsuitable. To stay out past curfew for a reason she picks. To wear something her mother would dislike. Those small wants accumulate into a bigger question about who her life belongs to. Crew, a Lancaster by blood and burden, has the opposite problem. Everyone expects ruin from him and he mostly obliges, drinking, fighting, charming teachers into passes, carrying family name as both shield and weight.

A deal at school

The setup is familiar and executed with care. Wren needs a guide to misbehavior she can trust not to ruin her. Crew needs a project that is not destruction. They strike an arrangement, tutoring in opposite directions. She helps him pass something he is failing. He helps her experience things she missed. Dates that are not dates. Parties where she watches before joining. Lessons in saying no as well as yes, which matters because the book takes consent seriously inside explicit scenes. Crew asks, waits, checks, even when the moment runs hot. Wren learns to state wants plainly rather than hinting and hoping to be guessed. Those negotiations, written as dialogue rather than narration, give the romance its backbone. They like each other through talk first, bodies second, which keeps 400 plus pages from feeling like only heat.

Lancaster Prep as a place works because Murphy treats money as atmosphere and pressure at once. Uniforms that cost more than some cars, dining halls with unspoken seating, teachers who grade legacies gently, parents who donate buildings and opinions. Wren navigates as insider who never quite belonged to the wild set. Crew navigates as insider who belongs too much to escape reputation. Their walks across quads, library corners, boathouse parties, all map social terrain readers of book one will recognize. New readers get enough orientation without info dumps. Who runs which clique. Which teacher looks away. Where to go to be unseen. Those practical details make the fantasy of prep school feel worked in rather than glossy.

Crew's family, the Lancasters who give the series its name, loom through money and absence. His father expects performance of heir without providing guidance. His mother manages appearances. Siblings from book one appear with opinions about Wren. Are they using each other. Will she tame him or will he ruin her. Those outside views pressure the couple to define themselves against gossip. A scene where Crew defends Wren publicly at cost to his own standing with friends tells you where his arc goes. He chooses being known by one person over being admired by many who do not know him. That choice costs parties, invitations, easy charm. He pays without speeches, which is why Wren believes it.

Wren's family gives the quieter conflict. Her mother loves her in controlling ways, planning college visits, outfits, suitable boys. Her father is distant but not unkind. When Wren starts slipping, missing curfew by minutes, getting a lower grade on one quiz, her mother notices and tightens. Those home chapters, phone calls with coded disappointment, care packages with notes about posture, feel true to anyone raised to be presentable. Wren does not hate her parents, which complicates rebellion. She loves them and wants a self they did not plan. That tension, gratitude versus autonomy, drives her more than Crew does. He is catalyst. The choice is hers about her life.

Heat with checking in

The explicit scenes are frequent after the midpoint and written with ongoing consent that never feels like legal form. Crew asks what Wren wants. She answers, sometimes shyly, sometimes boldly when she learns boldness gets heard. He stops when she hesitates. She initiates when ready. Aftercare matters. Water, blankets, talk about what worked. Those details keep heat human rather than performative. Readers who want fade to black will find too much here. This is open door new adult. Readers who want care inside heat will find it handled better than many in the genre. Power imbalance, rich boy experienced and poor? Actually Wren is not poor, just less wild, plus reputation risk falls more on her as girl, gets named in text. Crew knows his past will be forgiven as phase while hers would be labeled. He works to protect her privacy without controlling her choices. That effort, imperfect and explicit, is part of attraction. He sees the double standard and tries not to use it.

For pacing, the school year structure helps. Fall daring, winter deepening, spring consequences. Midterms, formals, parent weekends give deadlines. Two formal dances in a row follow similar beats, dress, whispers, slow song. I skimmed one arrival because the pattern, stare, judge, dance anyway, was clear. Then a scene where Wren dances with someone else to make Crew jealous and hates herself for playing games snaps it back. She apologizes directly rather than letting misunderstanding stretch for chapters. That directness, learned from Crew's blunt asking, shows growth. Fewer miscommunications than genre norm, more talked through fights. When they do separate late, it is over a real breach about family loyalty, not a overheard half sentence. The separation hurts proportionally because trust was built carefully.

The bet or deal element, depending how you read their arrangement, could feel transactional. Murphy avoids icky by letting both name it. Are we using each other. Yes, for stated reasons, with exit allowed. As feelings grow, they renegotiate rather than pretend the deal never existed. That honesty about transactional starts is refreshing. Many romances hide practical motives behind fate. Here practical motives are text. She wants experience. He wants distraction that is not destruction. They get those plus inconvenient love. Renegotiation scenes, where they drop tutoring pretense and admit dating, are sweet because awkward. Neither knows how to ask plainly for what they now want most. They practice on each other and get better.

Class, reputation, and the Lancaster name

What elevates the book beyond heat is attention to how reputation works differently by gender and money at prep schools. Crew's exploits raise his status among boys and amuse adults as high spirits. Wren's identical behavior would brand her. She knows it. He learns it by watching teachers punish her curiosity while laughing at his. A classroom scene where both are late and only Wren is scolded makes the point without lecture. Crew notices and starts arriving early when with her to share cover. Small allyship rather than savior speeches. He cannot fix double standards with family name, but he can absorb some cost. Those choices accumulate into love as shown through logistics. Who walks whom home past curfew posts. Who takes blame for shared ideas. Who tells friends to back off.

The Lancaster name as burden gets pages that resonate beyond prep fantasy. Crew is loved as heir and doubted as person. Relatives compare him to siblings. Alumni expect donations and decorum he does not feel. Wren, outside that fishbowl, sees him without ledger. She likes his humor when not performing, his care for a younger cousin, his knowledge of boats. He likes her attention to books, her laugh when surprised, her stubbornness about small morals like returning lost scarves. Those specific likes, listed in quiet moments rather than declared, build a case for them that gossip cannot dent. When Lancaster family members test Wren with condescending teas, she answers politely and firmly without Crew rescuing. He watches proudly from across the room and does not intervene, which is the right choice and hard for a protector type. Respect as restraint.

For criticism, the book runs long for its plot. At well over 400 pages in most editions, with no ISBN verifiable in Open Library for a standard edition, readers should know this is a slow burn that stays slow even after heating. Everyday school life, meals, practices, study halls, fills pages between turning points. Two shopping trips in a row blurred for me. I skimmed one because sweater descriptions do not advance. Then a short chapter where Wren fails a quiz she should have aced because she was up late with Crew snaps stakes back. Actions have academic costs her future cannot afford to ignore. That consequence grounds fantasy. Freedom is not free when scholarships or parental approval hinge on grades. Murphy lets Wren feel that pinch without punishing curiosity as sin. She adjusts, studies harder, keeps both love and grades through effort rather than magic.

Also, Crew's past with other girls gets referenced more than shown, which makes his reform tell rather than show. Exes appear to warn Wren and vanish. One confrontation feels staged to prove growth. And Wren's friends, lively early, fade mid book when couple isolates, then return for finale support. That isolation reads true to new love but thins world. A subplot about a friend's eating disorder gets one sensitive scene then drops. Given page count, more room existed to honor it.

Still, I finished rooting for them without reservation, which is rare for bad boy books where I usually want heroine to choose herself alone. Here choosing herself includes choosing him after clear eyed assessment. She does not need rescue from family. She needs witness to becoming. He witnesses without directing. That dynamic, plus careful consent and class awareness, lifts it above many in trope. Plan to read book one for Lancaster sibling context after, though this stands alone fine. New readers get enough family tree to follow without homework.

For who this is for. If you like off limits prep romance with heat and care, like The Deal with more money, try it. If you want fade to black, skip. This is explicit and long. If power gap bothers you, note Murphy names it and works to balance through checking and privacy protection, but gap remains as genre requires. I closed it thinking about Wren counting kisses, not as score but as proof she chose each one. A million is hyperbole. Choosing each one is the point. That framing turns title from gimmick to thesis. Count what you choose. Make each count.

Wren's friendships outside Crew deserve a last look because new adult romance often isolates couples to intensify, and Murphy resists that here usefully. Wren has a roommate who notices when she sneaks in late and covers without demanding details, then asks for honesty when worry outweighs loyalty. Those dorm conversations, whispered after lights out with snacks shared, give Wren a place to test thoughts before acting. Is Crew using me. Am I using him. What will Mom say if grades slip. The roommate does not decide for her. She reflects with humor about her own bad choices, which normalizes learning. Similarly, Crew has a friend from book one, a Lancaster sibling, who calls out when Crew performs indifference to impress. That friend sees through bad boy script because he wrote it himself younger. Their locker room talk, crude on surface and careful underneath about consent, shows boys policing each other better than adults do. When Crew brags once too far, the friend tells him to stop selling Wren as conquest. That check matters more than any dean lecture. Peer accountability inside privilege works when insiders enforce. Both friendships keep couple from floating in bubble where only their feelings count. Bills, grades, teams, families continue. Love must fit inside life, not replace it. That fitting work, scheduling dates around practices and papers, is the unsexy labor Murphy honors alongside heat. Anyone balancing new love with old obligations will recognize the calendar Tetris. Who gets Friday. What gets skipped without harm. Those small negotiations predict more than grand gestures whether love lasts past semester.