The Heir Affair is the sequel to their 2015 book The Royal We. That book was a quite transparent Will and Kate fantasy with Kate as an American, and a lot more down to earth. My problem when reading book two, was that I had read The Royal We 5 years ago, and my memory is not it. So, I had forgotten the specifics of the ending and the side characters, which made it a bit frustrating for me at first. But the book is not high literary fiction, so things do get explained and recaps are done so it wasn’t really THAT confusing.
This book starts with Will and Kate (not their book names, but whatever) running away from the Harry (the heir’s younger brother)-Kate related scandal. But the Queen is sick (or so they say), so they come back to face the music, and their royal duties.
The book was long and kinda meandering, but not in a totally bad way. There was no sense of urgency to the plot and it understandably focuses less on romance. I think this is because they are already married and it has been established that they love each other and are in it for the long haul. So the story is more about coming to terms with their life and dealing with frayed interpersonal relationships, especially between the couple and Harry. Like I said, it’s not a bad thing. I find these long reads covering long periods of time strangely comforting. But there are a few plot twists and choices that made me go WHAAAT. There is definitely some soap opera stuff going on. Plus, I can’t with Kate. He’s your husband’s brother and you know he loves you, NO, you aren’t allowed to have a “special” relationship with him! I don’t care if you love him as a friend. All interactions should purely be within the sister-in-law realm. Ugh.
Another struggle I have is that these characters are so obviously patterned after the real royals, at least in the initial book, that all the stuff going on with their real versions sort of intrude a little bit with my enjoyment of reading the book. But, it is an enjoyable and soapy read. Not world changing and a bit too wish fulfillment-y sometimes for my personal taste but overall worth your time if you’re into this kinda thing.
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