A review by paulieg
The Royal We Free Preview (The First 7 Chapters) by Heather Cocks, Jessica Morgan

3.0

Three and a half stars that I guiltily can't justify rounding up to four, even though I really enjoyed this alternate-history that charts a relationship very similar to real life royals Will & Kate. Future-King Nick & Rebecca "Bex" Porter (an American!) meet at Oxford, beginning a tumultuous 8-year romance that teases the possibility of a royal wedding. While technically a romance novel in that the central love relationship is vital to the story, the structure and tone of THE ROYAL WE is very much contemporary-mainstream, with the writing voice reminding me a lot of David Nicholls' (ONE DAY, US). Nick & Bex take center stage, but they are surrounded by a close-knit group of quirky undergraduate chums who are destined to star in their own Richard Curtis film ten years from now. The writing is breezy, assured, and sneakily poignant at perfect intervals. I excitedly planned to list this as one of my favorite reads of the year until right about the mid-point, when it completely flatlined (specifically, the Buckingham Palace party, plus a hundred pages beyond). I came back to the book after setting it aside for a time, and while it eventually regained some momentum, I found every scene went on a little too long, and think the book would read much better if it was 200 pages shorter. Those who are truly royals-obsessed may disagree, and wish for even more behind-the-curtain details of palace life.