Book Review – ‘Royals’ (#1 Royals) by Rachel Hawkins

The new breed of royal mixing up aristocracy…

Genre: Y/A, Contemporary, Romance

No. of pages: 296

From Goodreads:

Meet Daisy Winters. She’s an offbeat sixteen-year-old Floridian with mermaid-red hair; a part time job at a bootleg Walmart, and a perfect older sister who’s nearly engaged to the Crown Prince of Scotland. Daisy has no desire to live in the spotlight, but relentless tabloid attention forces her to join Ellie at the relative seclusion of the castle across the pond. 

While the dashing young Miles has been appointed to teach Daisy the ropes of being regal, the prince’s roguish younger brother kicks up scandal wherever he goes, and tries his best to take Daisy along for the ride. The crown–and the intriguing Miles–might be trying to make Daisy into a lady . . . but Daisy may just rewrite the royal rulebook to suit herself.  

I loved indulging in the princess fantasy, though, to be honest, it’s my least favourite title from Rachel Hawkins to date. The characters were a little stereotypical, and well… expected. The story didn’t seem to go anywhere either, just a lot of stuffy royals raising eyebrows at the common folk invading their turf. But having completed the debut of this series, with all the introductions out of the way and the scene set – it could get interesting in the sequels.

I missed the sassy independent female lead that Hawkins is famous for. Daisy is moody and mouthy in comparison. I liked her, but missed the witty banter, silly puns, and almost slapstick comedic moments that I’ve gotten used to. Instead it was a bumbling foreigner that wasn’t particularly humorous. I really felt for Daisy, at how much she was having to accommodate for her sister and the royals – and was additionally put out at how the ‘grown ups’ didn’t have the kahoonies to stand up and manage their family optics themselves, instead of relying on a handful of teenagers, and lets face it, the majority of them over-privileged and under-disciplined, to save face in the public eye. It all left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Ellie was a sap, if somewhat adorable as an older sister. I wasn’t really sold on her, though she did redeem herself by the end of the novel.

Seb was an annoying twat from start to finish – he has some serious growing up to do – why he hasn’t been shipped off to do some military service and gain some perspective, I don’t know.

Miles, the stereotypical brooding male lead – nuf said. It didn’t really work for me. There’s so much more you could have done with the tight-lipped gentile society and its customs, that ‘Royals’ felt like an ill-researched cop-out. Yes, it was still sufficiently entertaining and scandalous. But I wanted a bit more culture, politics, tension, and difficulty for this read.

I was also expecting a bit of a plot twist – Hawkins has been great at those in the past, but apart from one very minor reveal, this was very predictable and somewhat flat. Maybe its overexposure to scandal in the tabloids and saturation of celebrities and royal families alike, but ‘Royals’ did not feel unique, or have anything that set it apart from gossip sites.

I really hope the sequel to royals is way better or I’ll lose my faith in this new series completely.

On a side note I’ve seen the repackaging of this series… the covers are definitely more appealing but nothing overly exciting. But G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers have also renamed ‘Royals’ as ‘Prince Charming.’ Hope it doesn’t negatively affect sales and fans.

Overall feeling: Disappointing. Surprised to see this caliber of book come from Hawkins.

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