The Heir Affair is the second installment in Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan’s (of gofugyourself.com fame) royal fanfic series. The story picks up the adventures of Prince Nicholas and his new wife Bex (a thinly disguised Will and Kate, if Kate was also somehow a mix of Kate and Meaghan) immediately after their wedding. I would recommend reading these in order- there are some plot points that connect and you’ll give yourself some spoilers if you read the second novel first- on which point: beware said spoilers below.
When the story kicks off, Nick and Bex are hiding out in a tiny Scottish village, trying to wait out the scandalous fallout from a tabloid story about Bex’s supposed fling with Nick’s younger brother Freddie (cough*Harry*cough). After Nick’s grandmother, Queen Eleanor, falls ill, the two return to the glaring paparazzi lights of London to be by her bedside. Almost as uncomfortable as the renewed tabloid attention is the freeze out they get from the friends and family- those they left holding the bag (and giving endless ‘no comment’ responses to the journalists) while they hid out in the borderlands. To distract herself from the press and the mounting tension in her marriage, Bex switches focus to more domestic tasks. She and Nick have moved into the dusty and cluttered royal property that was previously home to the Queen’s reclusive younger sister Georgina and the place needs some serious cleaning. From this set up, the novel pulls together the two threads in a direction that draws parallels between Bex’s and Georgina’s love lives, while also focusing on fertility issues (a heir and a spare, that is Bex’s role).
I ended up with some mixed feelings on this one. I love the idea of some royal fanfic (especially in a year when Harry and Meghan made their escape!) but the execution felt a little unwieldy. Bex and Nick were often unlikeable (obtuse and immature) which I don’t think is what Cocks and Morgan were going for in a book with this focus/vibe (this is not a dishy tell-all about the vice and stupidity of the elite where you want to root for the villains). And the characters I did like (Freddie and his Dutch princess, Bex’s long-suffering friends) weren’t given very satisfying storylines. On a related note- the plot was also a bit convoluted and meandering; a good editor could definitely have tightened things up.
I am catching up on a whole bunch of old reviews and late to the party, but here goes: This is the People category under cbr13bingo because there two stylized people on the cover.