Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
I enjoyed this book, however, as the story went along the plot felt lost. There was less character development than I would’ve liked.
Her father’s death felt unnecessary, he was a star character and loosing him felt horrible.
Overall I cried and laughed whilst reading this book. Nick and Bex win hearts, but the ending falls flat.
Her father’s death felt unnecessary, he was a star character and loosing him felt horrible.
Overall I cried and laughed whilst reading this book. Nick and Bex win hearts, but the ending falls flat.
DNF. Some funny parts, but overall couldn’t relate to Bex and her sister at all. It was already getting depressing and I wasn’t even half way through. Just couldn’t do it.
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Not sure how I feel about a book so clearly about the royal family that the main theme is how much the attention on them is harmful. Like yes names and details are changed, but something just feels off about the combo. Anyway I really enjoyed it but feel weird about it.
Fun read!
Could not put this down! Took me a few times to get into the sample, but once I did I read the whole thing in hours straight!
Could not put this down! Took me a few times to get into the sample, but once I did I read the whole thing in hours straight!
A perfect little summer/beach read. Royal family fan fiction that is fantastical and hilarious, full of an interesting ensemble of characters, one oh whom is Queen Elanor who is a royal *expletive*. It hurts me to ever imagine Queen Elizabeth II like that witch. A cute read to escape to a royal family love story that seams far fetched yet also plausible.
Honestly this book was just the right amount of corny romance and drama that I needed. It’s meant to be a take on the William and Kate love story, but there is a point where they are definitely not Will and Kate anymore. The story is slightly far fetched but not enough to be completely non-believable, which I enjoyed. There was one part I didn’t like and it always seems to come up in Royal love stories. When Bex and Freddie kissed, I understood what it was meant to do for the plot but it seemed like a slight cop out. No sane person just makes out with someone cause they “can understand my situation”, but I digress. All works out in the end &I wouldn’t mind a companion about Freddie finding love with an actress now that Harry and Megan are married.
Overall it was enjoyable and would read further if the chance arose 4.5/5
Overall it was enjoyable and would read further if the chance arose 4.5/5
I am not familiar with these two authors or their blog www.gofugyourself.com yet I did check out their blog. It is a good blog. The reason I did is because I was expecting two authors who write this blog and title it the way they did to have more witty charm infused into this book. I started reading it in between television commercials. Which I was hoping that this book would be so funny that I would lose focus on the show I was watching and read just this book. This did not happen. Why you ask? Well despite the eccentric characters in this book. Which I did find entertaining and a fun group to hang out with, this was not enough for me to fully immerse myself in this book.
Although I found Bex to be down to earth in a good way and Nick to be every part of a gentleman and not snobbiness, the story moved very slowly. In fact, I thought this story could have been shortened about a hundred or plus pages and still gotten the point across that the story was to accomplish. Also, I was saddened that I did not find myself laughing along the way.
Although I found Bex to be down to earth in a good way and Nick to be every part of a gentleman and not snobbiness, the story moved very slowly. In fact, I thought this story could have been shortened about a hundred or plus pages and still gotten the point across that the story was to accomplish. Also, I was saddened that I did not find myself laughing along the way.
Overall: 2.3
Book Breakdown —
Characters: All were unlikeable. I only liked two of the side characters. The rest were deeply flawed. The more I read, the more I disliked them.
Pacing/ length: this was long. Arguably too long. It all aided in the development, but it was sad. It made me want to stop reading a couple of times. Trimming some of the miserable parts out would’ve eliminated overly sad moments and trimmed back on the substantial length.
Interesting Plot?: sort of. I picked it up thinking it would be happier than it was. I liked the idea of the book but didn’t like the characters enough to consider it overly interesting or memorable, at least not in a good way.
Reading Medium: audio. Good narrator. She did a good job acting out the emotional parts & differentiating between voices, tones, & accents. This book was made up of parts & before each part (& during the last few lines of the book) music would play. I wanted to hear the conclusion but it was distracting, & I had to replay the lines several times over to hear what was being said. I like when audiobooks play music before & after a performance but the music should never overlap actual words.
Spice (?/5): N/A - mostly vague & off-screen mentions. Although it was never detailed, hook ups were a frequent occurrence in the book.
Detailed Review—
For starters, this is not a fluffy beach read. It’s surprisingly emotional & complex; it shows the darker side of a real life fairy tale & details how that can influence your friendships/ relationships & cause isolation.
Continuing that, this book contains five parts & three of them are fairly miserable to read through. They’re borderline depressing. Kudos to the authors for making it all seem so heart wrenching, but that also made it hard to pick up. I managed to read through it by listening in giant sweeps while I worked on other things, but had I not been able to do that, I’m not sure I would’ve pushed through. It was just so sad & the characters were so dumb.
Speaking of dumb characters, let’s talk about our FMC, Rebecca. She was downright unlikeable. She got drunk often. She frequently, & recklessly, hooked up with both strangers & acquaintances, often while she was drunk. She never took her role seriously, even though she’d been dating Nick for 2+ years. It took her a very long time to mature, & I’m not convinced that she’d matured that much by the end. She also had this bad habit of being complacent in her relationship; she never voiced her concerns to Nick or stood up for herself. To top it all off, she kissed Freddie twice & then renounced her American citizenship, which was the last sense of self & home she felt she had. But her worst & most unlikeable trait of all was her inability to cope. Instead of dealing with her emotions, she instead employed the following methods to muddle through life: drinking copious amounts of alcohol, hooking up with the most inappropriate people, being reckless in the public eye, & then worst of all, kissing Freddie… twice & not telling Nick about it! Her decision to kiss Freddie was not only blatant slap of disrespect towards Nick, but her sister too. As she got older & I got to know her more my casual dislike for her turned into utter annoyance & then into undiluted irritation & thinly veiled hatred.
I kept waiting for character development, but it never really materialized. Overtime, she did become less of a party girl but all of her other flaws were still there. Although, now that I think about it, most of the characters didn’t have development. There were only a few that did: Freddie, Gaz, & Cilla. But even their development was minimally subtle.
Also, it took her literal years to ponder what being in a relationship with Nick would entail. It’s just dumb. Even if she saw him as just “Nick” & not “Prince Nick”, doesn’t mean the reality of her decision wouldn’t weigh on her for at least a fleeting moment. It would be impossible for it not to cross her mind at least once, so I found that to be unbelievable & annoying. It was more irritating once they started dating, & she kept wanting to go public with him but didn’t consider what that would actually mean. It was just wholly unrealistic & exasperating.
I loved Nick in the beginning. He had me swooning, but once they began dating he became an ass & deeply unlikeable. He only got worse as time went on. I ended up spending a lot of the book angry at him for treating Bex the way he did. And then in turn, I got angry at Bex for not listening to the people around her & levying her agency to stand up for herself. I felt they weren’t right for one another, & I wanted better for both of them.
Delving further into this, Nick saying “my Gemma” when Clive admitted he was dating her was messed up; especially considering he had been dating Bex for 2+ years. That entire scene stunk of Nick’s jealousy. Plus, he did a lot of other things that painted him to be a giant jerk towards Bex & even though I found her to be unlikeable, she deserved better. He hid her from the world & made her feel unworthy of him & his family. When he finally decided to introduce her to his family & the world, he uninvited her to the party last minute, blamed the univnite on his family & then proceeded to chat up Gemma the entire night in the publics eye with no explanation to Bex, and then, to top it off, lied to her about who revoked the invitation. There were so many times he walked all over her. All the while subjecting her to intense media scrutiny & stifled happiness by keeping their relationship officially hidden. He was doing her no favors, & I very much disliked him as I got to know him.
His actions, behaviors, & poor treatment of Bex, paired with her complacency, poor coping skills, & poor treatment of Nick, made them seem borderline toxic for one another. I honestly didn’t think they should end up together, at least not the way they did. If they had actually matured & grown up then that would’ve been different but that didn’t happen, & ultimately they weren’t meant for one another.
Freddie seemed like an ass at first. From the moment he got in bed with a partially undressed Bex to “meet her”, to his kissing her twice, once when she was engaged to his brother, it was all gross. He may have been charming but he had a lot of issues & didn’t always strike me as a standup guy. How he could kiss Bex and betray his brother that way is beyond me; it’s all so messed up. But he wasn’t as bad as some of the other characters believe it or not. And from the sounds of it, in the sequel, The Heir Affair,
Going back to toxic characters, Lacey was one of them. She was so reckless & annoying. I never thought she was that good of a sister. Even from the beginning when Bex first told Nick about her. I was never a fan. She only grew worse. To the point that I hated whenever Bex would stand up for her. By the end, I was rolling my eyes almost every time she was on the page.
So was Jos for that matter. I liked that this story showed how friendships & relationships were affected by the crown & how jealousy & greed warped friendships. But Jos was always a petty, unsupportive, and delusional leech. Luckily, she wasn’t a giant part of the story, but she was a part of it enough for me to strongly dislike her.
The moment I understood who Clive was, combined with the first kiss between Freddie & Bex, I knew what the climax of the book would be. It wasn’t surprising at all. For that matter, most of the bad guys in this book were pretty easy to read through. I don’t want to say that they were predictable, because they weren’t exactly predictable, but they were thinly veiled. A bit of a let down, but a minor offense in the grand scheme of things.
This was a long book. Unnecessarily so. Mostly because so much of the middle portion was so miserable to read through. Heartbreaking scenes & feelings poured from the page, & for that I have to give the authors credit where credit is due. However, I think a lot could have been trimmed out to make it less sad & could’ve shortened it significantly as well. Even though the emotions & heartbreak were realistically written, the story would’ve been better if some of it had been trimmed out to shorten the book & also make it a bit less burdensome to read.
Moving back to the characters, it was ridiculous that Nick didn’t take his relationship with Bex public after four years. Even her friends & family pitied her. It obviously bothered her too, but she never allowed herself to admit it. The closest she came to admitting it — even if it just was to herself internally — was when she was at Nick’s party; all of the royals, including Nick, ignored her, with the exception of Freddie, when he paid her a compliment & she thought:
She should have felt Nick, her boyfriend of four years, was her ally. But she didn’t. It was deeply concerning.
Their reunion years after their break up — & on the heels of Bex’ fathers death — wasn’t that sweet; I loved that Nick came to her apartment to help her through her grief, but that was all I loved. They almost immediately stripped down & landed in bed. They pretty much brushed aside all of their old issues. I mean, it was sweet that Nick was there for her after her father‘s death, but they had a lot of issues they needed to work through & sort out before continuing a relationship & they never did. Not even after the initial days of grief & reconciliation. It’s like they learned nothing from their first breakup.
To top that off, Nick re-enlisted in the navy & is gone for an entire year while Bex battles the royal family, wedding planning, & intense public scrutiny by herself. Even though she told him to go, I can’t fathom why he went or why he willingly left her to the wolves. Especially given his moms history & his fears of Bex repeating history & crumpling under the pressures of the crown. It was selfish & unthoughtful on his part. To make it worse, he had such terrible contact with her throughout his deployment that he may as well have been radio silent. It was a selfish move no matter how you slice it.
Their half assed wedding at the end wasn’t cute. Given all of the issues they just kind of glossed over, I didn’t want them to get married. I didn’t want it to end this way. It would’ve been better if they talked through their issues all night, made up in the morning, & gotten married. But no. Instead they talked for the span of a few pages & then decided they would figure it all out later & just get married now even though they had a ton of unresolved issues.
All in all, they were dysfunctional & needed to move on from one another. I didn’t support their relationship, & by the end I wasn’t rooting for them to end up together.
Aside from the wedding, it was just a crappy ending. No real conclusion for the big climax of the book (the release of Clive’s blackmail & the exposure of Bex & Freddie’s kiss). I wish it would’ve ended better in all regards; I know there’s a sequel but I’m fairly certain the book was originally meant to be a standalone & this ending doesn’t vibe with that. The last bit of the book amplified my dislike & slid my rating down significantly. I also don’t plan on picking up the sequel either.
From the reviews it appears the second book is way worse & apparently destroyed any work & character development they had built in this installment. Given these facts, I’m making up my own ending because of how much I didn’t like this one & the sequels’ story. The book series instead ends like this:
Nick & Bex stay up all night talking through their issues & realizing that the love they have for one another is stronger than their mistakes, but decide that they will both grow up & make better decisions as a team & as adults. They get married the next morning but continue to build their relationship up & work together as a united front after their marriage. Eventually, they learn to navigate being royal as an unwavering couple who love, support, & trust one other. They eventually have a 100% biological child together who becomes the next heir to the throne.
Meanwhile, Gaz stopped Clive from releasing the info with some fancy lawyer maneuvers, thus ending the blackmail threat. Gaz & Cilla (the only decent characters in the series) live happily ever after & remain close friends of Nick & Bex.
Clive becomes a washed up tabloid reporter in another country. He enrolled in therapy to get over his inferiority complex.
Lacey winds up making up with Bex but decides to move back to the United States & re-enroll in medical school. She eventually becomes a doctor in the US, meets a nice guy, falls in love, & lives a quiet, happy life, out of Bex’s shadow. The sisters mend their relationship & stay close, even though they live very different lives in different countries.
Freddie loses his way for a while because of his feelings of inadequacy, but he eventually meets a woman from another country who understands him in ways that he’s never experienced before, which heals him of his feelings of inadequacy. The two fall in love & live happily ever after. Together they take advantage of the fact that they are the “spare to the heir”, & live a carefree & charitable life together. Eventually they have one child together. Freddie mends his relationship with his brother & manages to partially step back from his Royal duties so that he can live in relative peace with his wife & child in Scotland, without the continued scrutiny of England & his family.
Character List—
Rebecca: FMC nicknamed Bex. American. Marries Nick.
Nick: heir of the UK. Marries Bex.
Lacey: twin sister of Bex. Always tries to outshine Bex because she feels like the “spare to the heir”. Was physically involved with Freddie.
Freddie: younger brother of Nick. Spare to the heir. Was involved with Lacey. Hit on Bex & seemed to have genuine feelings for her.
Clive: Bex’s hook up for months before she & Nick get involved. Journalist. Eventually blackmails Bex & becomes the main antagonist.
Jos: a college friend of FMC & MMC. A terrible fashion designer who guilts FMC to publicly wear her terrible outfits to royal events. Grows absurdly angry when FMC can’t promote her designs anymore.
Gaz: loyal college friend of FMC & MMC. Becomes a lawyer. His wife, Cilla, is also a loyal college friend of the royals.
Memorable Quotes—
Ten seconds is an eternity when they’re full of dread.
- Bex
Summary—
Summary borrowed from here.
Rebecca “Bex” Porter, a young American lives in England while studying abroad. The start of the novel reveals she is to be wed to Prince Nicholas of Wales, who is second in line for the throne of England. The rest of the novel takes place in a flashback leading up to the wedding. At the start of the flashback (Part One) Bex is a Cornell art student who is doing a semester abroad at Oxford. It is the first time she has been away from her twin sister, Lacey, but she soon bonds with her new roommates at Oxford, including Nick. Though Bex is having a casual fling with Clive, another roommate, she & Nick begin to bond by watching TV together late at night, when neither can sleep. Eventually, Bex confesses her love for Nick & they begin a relationship.
In Part Two, Bex & Nick are still happily in a relationship, but after a photo of them kissing is leaked to the press, they become the subjects of intense scrutiny from both Nick’s family & the press. Bex thinks this will be an opportunity for them to finally reveal their relationship to the world, but Nick is intent on keeping it quiet. He confesses to Bex the reason he has so much fear of the press is because of his mother, Emma: after marrying Richard & giving birth to her two sons, the paparazzi hounded Emma so intensely that she became paranoid, & eventually reclusive. Now, she lives alone, hardly speaks, & seems entirely disconnected from reality. Despite this confession, Bex & Nick are still hounded by the press, causing Nick to try to hide their relationship even more. At Nick’s birthday party, Nick spends the entire evening with an ex-girlfriend, Gemma. Soon after, Bex is uninvited to attend a wedding with Nick. They grow distant & fight more often. Eventually, things crumble on Bex’s birthday. She & Nick fight before reluctantly agreeing to break up, saying that with things as they presently are, they cannot sustain a union.
In Part Three, Bex agonizes over her breakup. She briefly returns to the US, where she proceeds to mope around her parents’ house. They encourage her to return to England, where her life is. Bex does so, & begins an intense streak of partying, that ends with her & Clive sleeping together on New Year’s Eve in Paris. Bex returns to England to comfort an injured Nick, who was accidentally punched after a reporter shouted inappropriate things about Bex at him. Bex carries on with her life, dedicating herself to her job at the Soane Museum & developing the Paint Britain program. She & Freddie, Nick's brother, start spending time together & bond. During a party, they accidentally kiss. After their kiss, Lacey finds Bex & tells her that Earl, their father, has died. The sisters return to America & grieve. When Bex returns to England, Nick is at her apartment waiting for her, & they immediately reconcile. Nick takes Bex to meet Emma & afterwards he proposes to her.
In Part Four, Bex & Nick are gearing up to make their engagement announcement official. The preparations have created strained relationships among Bex's friends. When Nick goes back to the Navy, Bex is alone & feels isolated. She & Lacey fight over Lacey’s flashy, attention-grabbing behavior. Meanwhile, Bex is being groomed by Marj to fit the role of a Duchess. The Queen asks Bex to sign away her American citizenship. At Gaz & Cilla’s wedding, Bex breaks down from the pressure, & Freddie takes her home. Freddie then confesses his long-repressed feelings for Bex & they kiss again. Bex denies him & they reconcile. Nick calls from the Navy & says Bex should not sign away her citizenship, but she does so anyway.
Part Five picks up where the prologue left off: present day, just as Bex & Nick are to be wed. Lacey & Bex are fighting because Clive has Lacey on tape talking about Bex & Freddie kissing, among other things, & is blackmailing Bex to share insider royal gossip with him in exchange for keeping the tape secret. At the wedding rehearsal, Bex can tell that Nick already knows of the situation & is furious. At the rehearsal dinner, they barely speak. Bex goes to Emma’s chambers & confesses to all of the ways she has screwed up. Nick finds Bex there & he apologizes for being angry with her & says he still wants to get married. They assemble all of their friends to hatch a plan to combat Clive’s blackmail attempt. Nick suggests they get married that same night, so no one can come between them. The group heads to a nearby church, & they have a small, humble ceremony & are married.
Book Breakdown —
Characters: All were unlikeable. I only liked two of the side characters. The rest were deeply flawed. The more I read, the more I disliked them.
Pacing/ length: this was long. Arguably too long. It all aided in the development, but it was sad. It made me want to stop reading a couple of times. Trimming some of the miserable parts out would’ve eliminated overly sad moments and trimmed back on the substantial length.
Interesting Plot?: sort of. I picked it up thinking it would be happier than it was. I liked the idea of the book but didn’t like the characters enough to consider it overly interesting or memorable, at least not in a good way.
Reading Medium: audio. Good narrator. She did a good job acting out the emotional parts & differentiating between voices, tones, & accents. This book was made up of parts & before each part (& during the last few lines of the book) music would play. I wanted to hear the conclusion but it was distracting, & I had to replay the lines several times over to hear what was being said. I like when audiobooks play music before & after a performance but the music should never overlap actual words.
Spice (?/5): N/A - mostly vague & off-screen mentions. Although it was never detailed, hook ups were a frequent occurrence in the book.
Detailed Review—
For starters, this is not a fluffy beach read. It’s surprisingly emotional & complex; it shows the darker side of a real life fairy tale & details how that can influence your friendships/ relationships & cause isolation.
Continuing that, this book contains five parts & three of them are fairly miserable to read through. They’re borderline depressing. Kudos to the authors for making it all seem so heart wrenching, but that also made it hard to pick up. I managed to read through it by listening in giant sweeps while I worked on other things, but had I not been able to do that, I’m not sure I would’ve pushed through. It was just so sad & the characters were so dumb.
Speaking of dumb characters, let’s talk about our FMC, Rebecca. She was downright unlikeable. She got drunk often. She frequently, & recklessly, hooked up with both strangers & acquaintances, often while she was drunk. She never took her role seriously, even though she’d been dating Nick for 2+ years. It took her a very long time to mature, & I’m not convinced that she’d matured that much by the end. She also had this bad habit of being complacent in her relationship; she never voiced her concerns to Nick or stood up for herself. To top it all off, she kissed Freddie twice & then renounced her American citizenship, which was the last sense of self & home she felt she had. But her worst & most unlikeable trait of all was her inability to cope. Instead of dealing with her emotions, she instead employed the following methods to muddle through life: drinking copious amounts of alcohol, hooking up with the most inappropriate people, being reckless in the public eye, & then worst of all, kissing Freddie… twice & not telling Nick about it! Her decision to kiss Freddie was not only blatant slap of disrespect towards Nick, but her sister too. As she got older & I got to know her more my casual dislike for her turned into utter annoyance & then into undiluted irritation & thinly veiled hatred.
I kept waiting for character development, but it never really materialized. Overtime, she did become less of a party girl but all of her other flaws were still there. Although, now that I think about it, most of the characters didn’t have development. There were only a few that did: Freddie, Gaz, & Cilla. But even their development was minimally subtle.
Also, it took her literal years to ponder what being in a relationship with Nick would entail. It’s just dumb. Even if she saw him as just “Nick” & not “Prince Nick”, doesn’t mean the reality of her decision wouldn’t weigh on her for at least a fleeting moment. It would be impossible for it not to cross her mind at least once, so I found that to be unbelievable & annoying. It was more irritating once they started dating, & she kept wanting to go public with him but didn’t consider what that would actually mean. It was just wholly unrealistic & exasperating.
I loved Nick in the beginning. He had me swooning, but once they began dating he became an ass & deeply unlikeable. He only got worse as time went on. I ended up spending a lot of the book angry at him for treating Bex the way he did. And then in turn, I got angry at Bex for not listening to the people around her & levying her agency to stand up for herself. I felt they weren’t right for one another, & I wanted better for both of them.
Delving further into this, Nick saying “my Gemma” when Clive admitted he was dating her was messed up; especially considering he had been dating Bex for 2+ years. That entire scene stunk of Nick’s jealousy. Plus, he did a lot of other things that painted him to be a giant jerk towards Bex & even though I found her to be unlikeable, she deserved better. He hid her from the world & made her feel unworthy of him & his family. When he finally decided to introduce her to his family & the world, he uninvited her to the party last minute, blamed the univnite on his family & then proceeded to chat up Gemma the entire night in the publics eye with no explanation to Bex, and then, to top it off, lied to her about who revoked the invitation. There were so many times he walked all over her. All the while subjecting her to intense media scrutiny & stifled happiness by keeping their relationship officially hidden. He was doing her no favors, & I very much disliked him as I got to know him.
His actions, behaviors, & poor treatment of Bex, paired with her complacency, poor coping skills, & poor treatment of Nick, made them seem borderline toxic for one another. I honestly didn’t think they should end up together, at least not the way they did. If they had actually matured & grown up then that would’ve been different but that didn’t happen, & ultimately they weren’t meant for one another.
Freddie seemed like an ass at first. From the moment he got in bed with a partially undressed Bex to “meet her”, to his kissing her twice, once when she was engaged to his brother, it was all gross. He may have been charming but he had a lot of issues & didn’t always strike me as a standup guy. How he could kiss Bex and betray his brother that way is beyond me; it’s all so messed up. But he wasn’t as bad as some of the other characters believe it or not. And from the sounds of it, in the sequel, The Heir Affair,
Spoiler
he doesn’t fare well; they take his character & give him a crappy story all the while dragging Bex & Nick’s small, minuscule character development through the mud too.Going back to toxic characters, Lacey was one of them. She was so reckless & annoying. I never thought she was that good of a sister. Even from the beginning when Bex first told Nick about her. I was never a fan. She only grew worse. To the point that I hated whenever Bex would stand up for her. By the end, I was rolling my eyes almost every time she was on the page.
So was Jos for that matter. I liked that this story showed how friendships & relationships were affected by the crown & how jealousy & greed warped friendships. But Jos was always a petty, unsupportive, and delusional leech. Luckily, she wasn’t a giant part of the story, but she was a part of it enough for me to strongly dislike her.
The moment I understood who Clive was, combined with the first kiss between Freddie & Bex, I knew what the climax of the book would be. It wasn’t surprising at all. For that matter, most of the bad guys in this book were pretty easy to read through. I don’t want to say that they were predictable, because they weren’t exactly predictable, but they were thinly veiled. A bit of a let down, but a minor offense in the grand scheme of things.
This was a long book. Unnecessarily so. Mostly because so much of the middle portion was so miserable to read through. Heartbreaking scenes & feelings poured from the page, & for that I have to give the authors credit where credit is due. However, I think a lot could have been trimmed out to make it less sad & could’ve shortened it significantly as well. Even though the emotions & heartbreak were realistically written, the story would’ve been better if some of it had been trimmed out to shorten the book & also make it a bit less burdensome to read.
Moving back to the characters, it was ridiculous that Nick didn’t take his relationship with Bex public after four years. Even her friends & family pitied her. It obviously bothered her too, but she never allowed herself to admit it. The closest she came to admitting it — even if it just was to herself internally — was when she was at Nick’s party; all of the royals, including Nick, ignored her, with the exception of Freddie, when he paid her a compliment & she thought:
at least I had one ally.
She should have felt Nick, her boyfriend of four years, was her ally. But she didn’t. It was deeply concerning.
Their reunion years after their break up — & on the heels of Bex’ fathers death — wasn’t that sweet; I loved that Nick came to her apartment to help her through her grief, but that was all I loved. They almost immediately stripped down & landed in bed. They pretty much brushed aside all of their old issues. I mean, it was sweet that Nick was there for her after her father‘s death, but they had a lot of issues they needed to work through & sort out before continuing a relationship & they never did. Not even after the initial days of grief & reconciliation. It’s like they learned nothing from their first breakup.
To top that off, Nick re-enlisted in the navy & is gone for an entire year while Bex battles the royal family, wedding planning, & intense public scrutiny by herself. Even though she told him to go, I can’t fathom why he went or why he willingly left her to the wolves. Especially given his moms history & his fears of Bex repeating history & crumpling under the pressures of the crown. It was selfish & unthoughtful on his part. To make it worse, he had such terrible contact with her throughout his deployment that he may as well have been radio silent. It was a selfish move no matter how you slice it.
Their half assed wedding at the end wasn’t cute. Given all of the issues they just kind of glossed over, I didn’t want them to get married. I didn’t want it to end this way. It would’ve been better if they talked through their issues all night, made up in the morning, & gotten married. But no. Instead they talked for the span of a few pages & then decided they would figure it all out later & just get married now even though they had a ton of unresolved issues.
All in all, they were dysfunctional & needed to move on from one another. I didn’t support their relationship, & by the end I wasn’t rooting for them to end up together.
Aside from the wedding, it was just a crappy ending. No real conclusion for the big climax of the book (the release of Clive’s blackmail & the exposure of Bex & Freddie’s kiss). I wish it would’ve ended better in all regards; I know there’s a sequel but I’m fairly certain the book was originally meant to be a standalone & this ending doesn’t vibe with that. The last bit of the book amplified my dislike & slid my rating down significantly. I also don’t plan on picking up the sequel either.
From the reviews it appears the second book is way worse & apparently destroyed any work & character development they had built in this installment. Given these facts, I’m making up my own ending because of how much I didn’t like this one & the sequels’ story. The book series instead ends like this:
Nick & Bex stay up all night talking through their issues & realizing that the love they have for one another is stronger than their mistakes, but decide that they will both grow up & make better decisions as a team & as adults. They get married the next morning but continue to build their relationship up & work together as a united front after their marriage. Eventually, they learn to navigate being royal as an unwavering couple who love, support, & trust one other. They eventually have a 100% biological child together who becomes the next heir to the throne.
Meanwhile, Gaz stopped Clive from releasing the info with some fancy lawyer maneuvers, thus ending the blackmail threat. Gaz & Cilla (the only decent characters in the series) live happily ever after & remain close friends of Nick & Bex.
Clive becomes a washed up tabloid reporter in another country. He enrolled in therapy to get over his inferiority complex.
Lacey winds up making up with Bex but decides to move back to the United States & re-enroll in medical school. She eventually becomes a doctor in the US, meets a nice guy, falls in love, & lives a quiet, happy life, out of Bex’s shadow. The sisters mend their relationship & stay close, even though they live very different lives in different countries.
Freddie loses his way for a while because of his feelings of inadequacy, but he eventually meets a woman from another country who understands him in ways that he’s never experienced before, which heals him of his feelings of inadequacy. The two fall in love & live happily ever after. Together they take advantage of the fact that they are the “spare to the heir”, & live a carefree & charitable life together. Eventually they have one child together. Freddie mends his relationship with his brother & manages to partially step back from his Royal duties so that he can live in relative peace with his wife & child in Scotland, without the continued scrutiny of England & his family.
Character List—
Rebecca: FMC nicknamed Bex. American. Marries Nick.
Nick: heir of the UK. Marries Bex.
Lacey: twin sister of Bex. Always tries to outshine Bex because she feels like the “spare to the heir”. Was physically involved with Freddie.
Freddie: younger brother of Nick. Spare to the heir. Was involved with Lacey. Hit on Bex & seemed to have genuine feelings for her.
Clive: Bex’s hook up for months before she & Nick get involved. Journalist. Eventually blackmails Bex & becomes the main antagonist.
Jos: a college friend of FMC & MMC. A terrible fashion designer who guilts FMC to publicly wear her terrible outfits to royal events. Grows absurdly angry when FMC can’t promote her designs anymore.
Gaz: loyal college friend of FMC & MMC. Becomes a lawyer. His wife, Cilla, is also a loyal college friend of the royals.
Memorable Quotes—
Ten seconds is an eternity when they’re full of dread.
- Bex
Summary—
Summary borrowed from here.
Rebecca “Bex” Porter, a young American lives in England while studying abroad. The start of the novel reveals she is to be wed to Prince Nicholas of Wales, who is second in line for the throne of England. The rest of the novel takes place in a flashback leading up to the wedding. At the start of the flashback (Part One) Bex is a Cornell art student who is doing a semester abroad at Oxford. It is the first time she has been away from her twin sister, Lacey, but she soon bonds with her new roommates at Oxford, including Nick. Though Bex is having a casual fling with Clive, another roommate, she & Nick begin to bond by watching TV together late at night, when neither can sleep. Eventually, Bex confesses her love for Nick & they begin a relationship.
In Part Two, Bex & Nick are still happily in a relationship, but after a photo of them kissing is leaked to the press, they become the subjects of intense scrutiny from both Nick’s family & the press. Bex thinks this will be an opportunity for them to finally reveal their relationship to the world, but Nick is intent on keeping it quiet. He confesses to Bex the reason he has so much fear of the press is because of his mother, Emma: after marrying Richard & giving birth to her two sons, the paparazzi hounded Emma so intensely that she became paranoid, & eventually reclusive. Now, she lives alone, hardly speaks, & seems entirely disconnected from reality. Despite this confession, Bex & Nick are still hounded by the press, causing Nick to try to hide their relationship even more. At Nick’s birthday party, Nick spends the entire evening with an ex-girlfriend, Gemma. Soon after, Bex is uninvited to attend a wedding with Nick. They grow distant & fight more often. Eventually, things crumble on Bex’s birthday. She & Nick fight before reluctantly agreeing to break up, saying that with things as they presently are, they cannot sustain a union.
In Part Three, Bex agonizes over her breakup. She briefly returns to the US, where she proceeds to mope around her parents’ house. They encourage her to return to England, where her life is. Bex does so, & begins an intense streak of partying, that ends with her & Clive sleeping together on New Year’s Eve in Paris. Bex returns to England to comfort an injured Nick, who was accidentally punched after a reporter shouted inappropriate things about Bex at him. Bex carries on with her life, dedicating herself to her job at the Soane Museum & developing the Paint Britain program. She & Freddie, Nick's brother, start spending time together & bond. During a party, they accidentally kiss. After their kiss, Lacey finds Bex & tells her that Earl, their father, has died. The sisters return to America & grieve. When Bex returns to England, Nick is at her apartment waiting for her, & they immediately reconcile. Nick takes Bex to meet Emma & afterwards he proposes to her.
In Part Four, Bex & Nick are gearing up to make their engagement announcement official. The preparations have created strained relationships among Bex's friends. When Nick goes back to the Navy, Bex is alone & feels isolated. She & Lacey fight over Lacey’s flashy, attention-grabbing behavior. Meanwhile, Bex is being groomed by Marj to fit the role of a Duchess. The Queen asks Bex to sign away her American citizenship. At Gaz & Cilla’s wedding, Bex breaks down from the pressure, & Freddie takes her home. Freddie then confesses his long-repressed feelings for Bex & they kiss again. Bex denies him & they reconcile. Nick calls from the Navy & says Bex should not sign away her citizenship, but she does so anyway.
Part Five picks up where the prologue left off: present day, just as Bex & Nick are to be wed. Lacey & Bex are fighting because Clive has Lacey on tape talking about Bex & Freddie kissing, among other things, & is blackmailing Bex to share insider royal gossip with him in exchange for keeping the tape secret. At the wedding rehearsal, Bex can tell that Nick already knows of the situation & is furious. At the rehearsal dinner, they barely speak. Bex goes to Emma’s chambers & confesses to all of the ways she has screwed up. Nick finds Bex there & he apologizes for being angry with her & says he still wants to get married. They assemble all of their friends to hatch a plan to combat Clive’s blackmail attempt. Nick suggests they get married that same night, so no one can come between them. The group heads to a nearby church, & they have a small, humble ceremony & are married.
Actual rating: 4.5 stars
I loved this book! It was so much funnier than I thought it was going to be. And Nick just made my heart BURST with all the thoughtful and touching romantic gestures he did for Bex. My ONE issue was that I thought it ended to abruptly. I wanted resolution to the Clive situation! Did they or did they not get to have the big ceremony? I HAVE QUESTIONS AND I NEED THEM ANSWERED! I know that it's not about the Royal Wedding but their love for each other but it still irks me ugh. Would have been 5 stars otherwise to be honest. Anyway, it was still a lovely story and so much fun. Good rom com book - would recommend.
I loved this book! It was so much funnier than I thought it was going to be. And Nick just made my heart BURST with all the thoughtful and touching romantic gestures he did for Bex. My ONE issue was that I thought it ended to abruptly. I wanted resolution to the Clive situation! Did they or did they not get to have the big ceremony? I HAVE QUESTIONS AND I NEED THEM ANSWERED! I know that it's not about the Royal Wedding but their love for each other but it still irks me ugh. Would have been 5 stars otherwise to be honest. Anyway, it was still a lovely story and so much fun. Good rom com book - would recommend.
A fun, light read. I was only able to put the book down after a character's death left me briefly bereft... but quickly resumed (and finished) the text. As much as I enjoyed the escapist fantasy presented, the story and characters were at times cliched. I'd recommend this to someone looking for a beach novel.