Friday 31 March 2023

Royal Blood by Aimée Carter


Kicked out of her American boarding school, Evan is sent to live with her estranged father, the King of England. Her existence as his illegitimate daughter is top secret - until someone leaks it to the press. Suddenly she's the focus of a thousand lurid headlines, plus the hatred of her stepmother the Queen and half-sister Princess Maisie.

Then the royal scandal intensifies... After Evan is seen disappearing with a journalist's son at a party, he is found dead and she becomes the primary suspect in a murder investigation. Did "the Killer Princess" really do it? It seems that only the Queen's gorgeous nephew Kit will help Evan clear her name. But can she really trust anyone at the palace?


Who doesn't love a good rags to riches story? The Princess Diaries (which gets a sneaky shout out in this novel!) proved it. This series starter just adds to it with a fantastic story set in a fictional British monarchy (side note, I'm always curious how much writers have to clear with the actual palace!) The idea here is that Edward VIII did not marry Wallace, instead staying on the throne; this, by 2023, we have an entirely different royal family, with Elizabeth's branch not even mentioned.

There's a lot of murky family politics here, mostly in the latter parts of the story, but it was always easy enough to follow; there is a family tree at the start, but in my proof it's not laid out properly, but it'll be great to have it in the real book to follow along with as I did get a bit confused between the cousins!

I was expecting a revelation about Maisie that didn't come, but maybe it's planned for another book (or I'm barking up the wrong tree entirely!) and there were plenty of other revelations to be going on with anyway.

I do love Evan - I hope she doesn't lose too much edge as she assimilates into the royal family, it would be a shame as she's fantastic. I loved the inclusion of tweets and newspaper articles throughout as well - for a contemporary with this kind of plot, there's no hiding the fact that that kind of reaction would be there and actually seeing it is wonderful.


I really enjoyed this and I can't wait to read the next ones.



Royal Blood published on the 7th of March, 2023 in the US (lower image, because I copied them the wrong way around, whoops) and publishes on the 13th of April, 2023 in the UK (top image). I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.

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