The Royal We is basically well-written alternate universe William Wales and Kate Middleton fanfiction. (That’s not an insult by the way. I’m very much pro-fanfiction and side-eye people who make fun of it. Some of the most famous white dude classic fiction is totally fanfiction.) I’m sure the real Will and Kate story would be a snooze compared to the Nick and Bex story.
American Rebecca Porter meets Nick and his quirky cast of friends while studying abroad at Oxford. Slowly they become friends and eventually start dating in secret. But their story isn’t all fairytale, it has plenty of bumps along the way. His family (except for Nick’s roguish brother Freddie) doesn’t approve of her glaring Americanness, the tabloids are out for royal blood any way they can get it, Bex’s twin sister Lacey keeps making news in all the wrong ways, and both Nick and Bex are carrying secrets with big ramifications.
This was a very entertaining, over-the-top read and a perfect book to crack open during the summer. Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan write complex, memorable characters in unforgettable situations. My only complaint about The Royal We is that it needed more editing. At 454 pages, it’s pretty long and the plot would have been much stronger with some paring down. I would have easily given this 4 stars if they’d trimmed the excess a bit. But if you like the royals or modern-day romance books, don’t let the length scare you off. It only took me a couple of days to finish it because it was such a page-turner.
