The Royal We, by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan

In November and December, I hit a bit of a reading slump. I was reading good books and I was liking them. But they were all so sad. Books about death and suicide and mental illness. Even the fantasy I was reading, The Jewel by Amy Ewing, was dark and hard. A world where girls are sold as surrogates to rich women against their will – not exactly light reading. Deciding to end the streak, I picked up The Royal We, by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan. The title and the cover alone were enough for me to guess what the book was about, but I this surpassed my wildest imagination and definitely broke my sad book slump. I mean I’m not going to say that it’s essentially 454 pages of Will and Kate fan fiction … but I’m also not going say it isn’t. What I can say, without qualm, is that is fun, drama-filled, and (perhaps surprisingly) well written. 

Rebecca Porter is a privileged, but basically normal American girl who travels to Oxford for a year of study abroad. She ends up in the dorm of Prince Nicholas, the future king of England. At first, her royal-obsessed sister, Lacey, back home is more excited about this than Bex … but then (as the back cover will tell you) she falls for Nick, the person not the prince. The book covers almost ten years of the couple’s tumultuous relationship and centers on a big decision Bex has to make on the eve of the wedding of the century.

The portrayals of royal figures in this book are thinly veiled at best and completely outrageous, but I kind of loved that. It’s like the book totally and one hundred percent commits to what it is and is determined to have as much fun with it as possible. Bex is also a well-crafted character, that any girl who’s ever wondered how would I respond if a prince  fell in love with me will relate to. There’s so much else I want to talk about – especially the sister aspects of the story which I found both intriguing and slightly problematic – but I don’t want to spoil anything.

Despite the book’s girth, I sped through it in a rainy afternoon. It’s the perfect read for a hot bath on a cold day – if you can manage not to drop it in the tub.