Genre: Contemporary

I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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. 

Rachel Hawkins is an auto-read author for me so I barely even glanced at the Goodreads blurb before diving into this. I just saw her tweet a bunch about it and decided I definitely needed this book in my life. Anyway, so. I dove in. Fell in love and then realized I should probably look up the Goodreads blurb. ANYWAY. SO. A book about royalty!!!! Most books about royalty feature that one character who finds themselves amongst royalty because they have fallen in love with someone who is royal except that is absolutely, 110% not the case with Daisy. Daisy’s sister has fallen in love with the Crown Prince of Scotland. This is not ideal for Daisy, not because she has royal aspirations of her own but because she really really doesn’t like the toxic media attention that comes with it. 

Rachel Hawkins is truly a queen on writing things that evoke emotions because honestly, I found myself just as frustrated as Daisy even though, technically speaking, Ellie (Daisy’s sister) was also dealing with a lot and probably much more than Daisy. She inserts the reader so directly into Daisy’s POV and you’re taken on a journey to a WHOLE NEW WORLD but also an emotional journey as Daisy really absorbs the world her sister is about to become a part of. It’s exciting to be able to relate to a character so much that their emotions basically become your own so you’re on the same emotional journey throughout the book.

Clearly, I am super excited about this book but like honestly, Rachel Hawkins always fills my need for witty characters who make snarky comments and will tell people how it is. There is a reason why I basically read Hex Hall yearly now. And it’s even better because Daisy isn’t the soon-to-be princess, she is the girl who really doesn’t want to be caught up in the mess.

This book features Rachel Hawkins trademark humor as well as some amazing friendships, some characters I am looking forward to getting to know in the sequels, parents that are both supportive and laugh-out-loud hilarious and a Miles who I won’t say much else about. It also features a complex sibling relationship which I truly appreciated and enjoyed. 

My only critique of this book pertains to a minor thing that bugged me a little. There are like 3 or 4 jokes that imply that the Scottish were colonizers??? Which is not really true?? They were colonized and have a pretty complicated relationship with the English as a result. To be clear, I don’t really expect details about that history and relationship from the book, I just wish the jokes that framed the Scottish as colonizers hadn’t been made. UPDATE: My mini-rant on this subject was based on something that was discussed in one of my classes and upon further reading I’ve come to realize that the Scottish/English relationship is completely unlike the Irish/English one? None of this is truly relevant to the book but since I made a point to rant about the non-issue, I feel that I should also come back and correct myself. SO. Um. The Scottish weren’t necessarily colonized by the English in the same way the Irish were. The Scottish also colonized some parts of the world but there is still a lot of tension b/w the English and the Scottish in terms of the balance of power and such. 

Overall, Royals is absolutely delightful and if you are any sort of human who enjoys any fun in their life, you definitely need this book on your TBR. I cannot wait to read the sequel and get to meet the character who gets all of Hawkins’ husband’s bad geology jokes.

4 Hot Espressos