Right off the bat, I have to
say that as someone who’s a huge fan of Emma Chase’s books, I was really
excited about Royally Screwed and the
Royally series as a whole ever since
she first announced the series, and I’m very happy to say that I absolutely
loved this book. That being said, while I’ve always thought that the overall
quality of Emma Chase’s writing for the Tangled
series was pretty good, in retrospect I do think that Chase’s writing for the series
is somewhat uneven. Tangled (The book) is a very well written, and impressive debut novel from a first-time
author; and in my opinion, it’s the best book in the series. Twisted was okay, and it did have
some great moments, but it’s definitely not a great book, as far as I’m
concerned. Tamed is
definitely my second favorite book in the series, and despite the fact that Tied does include some great
moments throughout the book, it’s still the weakest book in the Tangled series, in my opinion. When it comes
to the Legal Briefs series, I didn’t
think the first book, Overruled,
was quite as good as Tangled (The
book) was, but it was definitely better than the majority of the Tangled series. I felt like the Legal Briefs series pretty much only
went uphill from there, making the series better than the Tangled series. That being said, while I don’t necessarily think
that Chase topped herself yet again with Royally
Screwed, I do think it’s the strongest first book that she has written for
one of her book series.
The reason I’m beginning
this review by mentioning my thoughts on the Tangled series is because one thing that I found myself thinking
about a lot as I was listening to Royally
Screwed on audiobook, was that I felt like Chase has really honed her craft
if you compare her writing for Royally
Screwed to her writing for the Tangled
series. Much like Drew Evans from the Tangled
series, the primary protagonist of Royally
Screwed, Prince Nicholas Arthur Frederick Edward Pembrook, is definitely what
I would describe as being a “lovable asshole”. However, compared to Drew, I felt
like Chase did a much better job of creating the perfect balance of Nicholas
acting like a real asshole at times, while also having him demonstrate a lot of
great, redeeming qualities throughout the book as well; making him a very nuanced
and lovable character.
When it came to Drew, I
started out the Tangled series
absolutely loving him, but by the end of the series, he had repeatedly pissed
me off, and annoyed me quite a bit throughout the series, to the point where I
ultimately simply just liked him a lot by the end of the series. I definitely
didn’t love him as much as I did when the series began, especially due to how
he was written at times in Twisted
and Tied. Plus, he really pissed me off in “Holy Frigging Matrimony”. A big part of why I loved the Legal Briefs series even more than the Tangled series is because I ultimately loved Stanton, Jake, and
Brent a lot more than I liked Drew by the end of the Tangled series. That being said, after reading Royally Screwed, I’d say that Nicholas is definitely my favorite
out of all the male protagonists in Emma Chase’s books.
When it comes to how Chase
handled Nicholas’ character development throughout the book, Nicholas’ interactions
with Freddie (A boy that he befriended when he visited a boys’ group home for
orphans at one point in the book) definitely stands out as one of my favorite Nicholas
moments. After Nicholas finds out that Freddie and the other boys at the group
home only get things like fruit salad for dessert, he arranged for Freddie and
all of the other boys at the group home to go to Amelia’s (The restaurant that
Olivia’s family owns, which is named after Olivia’s dead mother), so they could
have some pie, which Amelia’s is known for. While I think it’s pretty safe to
say that on some level, Nicholas did have ulterior motives for doing that,
namely to impress Olivia and convince her to go on a date with him; I still
thought it was pretty sweet that he did that, and I felt like Nicholas’
interactions with Freddie added some great depth to the writing for Nicholas.
Much like Nicholas, Olivia
Hammond was also a great character that I thought was very well written for the
most part. I felt like Chase did a great job of quickly and effectively
introducing Olivia, and giving the reader a good picture of what her life is
like in the chapter she’s first introduced in, which is chapter three. I
immediately loved the relationship between Olivia and her younger sister, Ellie.
That being said, while I thought that Olivia was a very well developed
character, I have to admit that I was really confused about what the deal was
with Olivia’s father the first time I read Royally
Screwed. Based on the backstory for Olivia’s father that’s established
early on in the book, I initially got the impression that Chase was trying to
portray him as simply being emotionally distant, despite being physically
present in Olivia and Ellie’s lives; and that he had pretty much emotionally
“checked out” after Olivia’s mother died. (It was established that Olivia’s
mother had tragically died after being mugged on the subway nine years before
the events that take place in this book.)
As the book progressed, Olivia
tells Nicholas that her father is an alcoholic at one point in the book, but
not a violent one. I have to admit that it really bothered me that there’s
never any interaction between Olivia and her father where she actually calls
him out on his drinking. The closest Olivia comes to calling her father out on
his behavior was when he tries to talk her out of going to Wessco with
Nicholas, but even then, she was calling him out on the fact that he had
emotionally “checked out” after her mom died, she didn’t call him out on his
drinking during their argument. It’s established later on in the book that he
had started going through the twelve steps of AA during the period of time when
Olivia was staying in Wessco with Nicholas; but even after that, there isn’t
really any actual acknowledgement of Olivia’s father having a drinking problem
between the two of them. The confusing writing for Olivia’s father ultimately didn’t
hinder my enjoyment of the book too much, but I still feel like Chase could
have done a better job of making it clear what exactly she was going for when
it came to the writing for Olivia’s father as a character in the book. Plus, Chase
definitely could have fleshed out the father-daughter relationship between
Olivia and her father just a little bit more, in my opinion.
While the main thing that
drew me to the book Tangled was the
fact that it was a romance novel that’s written from the guy’s point of view;
when it comes to Royally Screwed, I
really love the fact that Chase alternated back and forth between Nicholas’ and
Olivia’s points of view throughout the book, rather than writing the book
solely from Nicholas’ point of view. This is definitely one of Chase’s books
where I felt like it was very important to get both of the main characters’
sides of the story, in order to really develop and flesh them both out as
characters. I also felt like it was very smart of Chase to switch back and
forth between Nicholas and Olivia’s points of view throughout the book in order
to really develop the overall plot of the book as well.
Personally, I’m really glad
that Chase wrote the chapter where Nicholas and Olivia meet each other for the
first time (Chapter Three) from Olivia’s point of view. Nicholas and Olivia
meet each other for the first time when Nicholas comes to Amelia’s with one of
his friends, drunk, and initially offers to pay Olivia ten thousand dollars to
have sex with him. When she turns the offer down, he offers her five thousand
dollars simply to kiss him. While I’m glad that Olivia ultimately turned
Nicholas down by shoving a pie in his face, and kicking both him and his friend
out of the restaurant, I thought that Chase did a great job of showing the
reader that Olivia’s financial situation with Amelia’s, and her family, was
pretty bad to the point where there was a part of her that was tempted to accept
the offer to sleep with him for ten thousand dollars. I really enjoyed Olivia’s
brief internal struggle about whether or not she should sleep with him for money,
and I thought that Chase handled it very well in terms of how that part of the
book was written.
One of the things that I
think makes Royally Screwed such a
great book is the fact that while Chase definitely did an excellent job of
portraying Nicholas and Olivia’s relationship as being very romantic and
passionate, she also did a really good job of painting their relationship as being
a situation that wasn’t entirely ideal. After all, since Nicholas is the prince
of Wessco, his grandmother, Queen Lenora, was expecting him to marry a woman
who also came from a royal family, and early on in the book, she told him that
he needed to pick a girl to get engaged to within three months; so Nicholas and
Olivia spent a large portion of the book thinking that their relationship
pretty much had an expiration date. While that was definitely something that
was on Nicholas and Olivia’s minds throughout the book, Chase thankfully didn’t
beat the reader over the head with that fact too much when it came to
acknowledging that throughout the book. Chase acknowledged that detail enough
to convey that it was an important part of the plot, but she also didn’t fixate
on it too much.
Personally, I really love
the fact that the overall plot of Royally
Screwed wasn’t entirely predictable. I figured that the book would have a
happy ending, but I honestly didn’t know how Nicholas and Olivia would
ultimately get their happy ending. Maybe other people saw the ending coming,
but I honestly hadn’t really considered that as a possibility, so I was
definitely surprised by the ending of the book. It’ll definitely be interesting
to see how the couples in Royally Matched
and Royally Endowed will be affected
by the rules regarding who members of the royal family are expected to marry
like Nicholas and Olivia were.
While Royally Screwed features a lot of really great moments between
Nicholas and Olivia, my favorite moment between the two of them in the entire
book is definitely the scene where they open up to each other at the end of
their first date about things that I’m guessing that they most likely had never
told any body else before. For example, Nicholas told Olivia that he hates that
people bow down to him since he’s royalty, because he doesn’t think he always
deserves to have people bowing down to him. Olivia admitted that she hates pie,
which is apparently the main thing Amelia’s is known for, and that she also feels
trapped working at Amelia’s. The writing for that scene as a whole is
absolutely fantastic, and I felt like it provided some great character development
for both Nicholas and Olivia.
For the most part, I’m
really glad that Royally Screwed
didn’t include a love triangle, mainly because I thought that the book already
had plenty of interesting and engaging problems for Nicholas and Olivia to deal
with throughout the book. Royally Screwed
definitely wasn’t lacking anything by not including a love triangle in the
overall plot of the book. As I’ve discussed in my reviews for the Legal Briefs series, I’m really glad that
with the exception of Overruled, the Legal Briefs series didn’t contain any
full-on, genuine love triangles, given the fact that the writing for the
rivalry between Drew and Billy throughout the Tangled series is, in my opinion, the weakest aspect of the series
in the grand scheme of things; that being said, there’s a small part of me that
wishes that Royally Screwed had included
a love triangle.
While I thought that Olivia
was a very well written character, and I loved Olivia for the most part, it
definitely bugged me that Chase portrayed her as being down on her luck in
pretty much every way she possibly could be: It was essentially Olivia’s
responsibility to run Amelia’s, which was established early on in the book as
being in a lot of debt; it was pretty much her responsibility to raise her
sister, Ellie, and her dad had pretty much checked out emotionally and
developed a drinking problem after Olivia’s mother died, so she also has to
take care of him whenever he gets drunk. In the aforementioned scene where
Nicholas and Olivia open up to each other about very personal things, Olivia
admits that one of the reasons that she hadn’t gotten the lock on the door of
Amelia’s fixed is because she feels trapped in the life she has been living. The
state of Olivia’s love life prior to meeting Nicholas was also described as
being pretty pathetic, too. While I usually don’t think that somebody being in
a romantic relationship automatically makes their life better, it would have been
nice to see Olivia be lucky in at least one aspect of her life, and one of the
ways I think Chase could have done that is by including a love triangle in this
book.
One thing that I think Chase
could have possibly done for a love triangle in Royally Screwed is have an ex-boyfriend or a long-time friend that
has secretly always had feelings for Olivia come back into her life, and
romantic feelings could develop between Olivia and the guy. Their relationship
could have been portrayed as being much more easy-going and drama free compared
to Nicholas and Olivia’s relationship. Ultimately, Olivia would realize that
having to deal with all of the challenges and obstacles that come with dating
Nicholas are worth it in the end, and that he’s the guy who’s truly in her
heart. I feel like a scenario like that would have also really fit with the
synopsis that’s on the back of the book, and what it alluded to in regards to
Nicholas’ character arc throughout the book. Although, that’s just one possible
scenario that I thought of in which I think a love triangle could have worked
in this book.
In addition to Nicholas and
Olivia both serving as great protagonists in Royally Screwed, the book also includes a variety of great
secondary characters. My favorite out of all the secondary characters is
definitely Nicholas’ younger brother, Henry, who was on quite a
self-destructive streak throughout the book. I thought that the backstory
behind what triggered Henry’s self-destructive behavior was ultimately very
interesting and compelling. Personally, I loved the relationship between
Nicholas and Henry, and I wish that Chase had included some more moments
between them throughout the book, because I loved what we saw of their
relationship so much. That being said, the parts of the book that featured
Henry definitely got me excited for Royally
Matched since he’s going to be the protagonist of the book.
Given the fact that
Nicholas’ grandmother pretty served as an obstacle in Nicholas and Olivia’s
relationship, I’m really surprised by how much I ended up loving her as a
character. I just felt like all of Nicholas’ interactions with her were very
entertaining, and I kind of wish that she had been featured in the book more, simply
because I loved her so much.
It was established that the Royally series apparently takes place in
the same “universe” that the Legal Briefs
series takes place in, because Brent and Kennedy from the third book in the Legal Briefs series, Appealed, made a brief cameo
appearance in the book. Nicholas and Olivia went to a party that Brent and
Kennedy were throwing at one point in the book, and it was established that
Kennedy was pregnant with twins. Naturally, Brent was classic Brent about that
fact, and he bragged to Nicholas and Olivia about how he must have “Super
Sperm” since they were having twins. Brent and Kennedy’s cameo in Royally Screwed was definitely an
unexpected and wonderful surprise to me, and I really love that Chase decided
to connect both the Legal Briefs
series and the Royally series by
including that cameo. Personally, I’d love it if Chase had characters from the Tangled series make appearances in
future books in the Royally series.
I honestly don’t have too
many complaints about Royally Screwed.
The biggest complaint that I have about this book is definitely that I’m not a huge
fan of the writing for the character Marty. Being bisexual myself, I was really
annoyed by the fact that Chase wrote the character Marty in such a way that he
really came across as if she was trying to fill an entire bingo card of clichés
regarding gay men when it came to how Marty was written. Marty really came
across to me as being flamboyantly gay and rather effeminate in terms of how he
acted. At times, it was as if Chase felt the need to have Marty say something
that would remind the reader that he’s gay in pretty much every scene that he
was in, even though I don’t think that would be something that people reading
this book would quickly forget if Marty didn’t repeatedly make references to
the fact that he’s gay. It just got to the point where I felt like Marty’s
sexual orientation defined who he was as a character. Plus, I felt like Marty
was ultimately reduced to simply playing the role of the gay best friend that
has been present in so many books in the romance genre and in romantic comedies,
when it came to the purpose he served in the book.
Personally, I definitely would
have preferred for Marty to have been written in such a way that he came across
as being a very masculine guy who just happened to be gay; without Chase
feeling the need to have Marty say something to remind the reader that he’s gay
in pretty much every scene that he was in. Don’t get me wrong; Marty is
ultimately a very likable character, and there’s nothing truly offensive about
how the character is written. I just wish that Marty hadn’t been as defined by
his sexual orientation as I felt he was.
The other complaint that I
have about this book is that I felt like the whole thing with Olivia being told
that she wasn’t allowed to take the necklace that Nicholas had given her at one
point in the book when she was packing her things to go home, and she tried to
take it with her, after she and Nicholas had a big fight created quite a few
plot holes. Nicholas accused Olivia of revealing the fact that he had gotten a
girl pregnant at some point in the past, and that the girl ended up having a
miscarriage to the media in exchange for money. Nicholas and Olivia pretty much
broke up, with Olivia saying that if he actually thinks that she would really
reveal that information to the media, then she was going to go back home to her
family. A woman who worked for Nicholas’ family told Olivia that she wasn’t
allowed to take the necklace with her, because it was considered the property
of the royal family, so Olivia left it in the bedroom that she had been staying
in. When Nicholas went to talk to Olivia about their fight, and he saw that she
had left without taking the necklace with her, he interpreted Olivia doing that
as a final act of rejection on her part, so he decided to not go after her at
first. That really left me with quite a few questions.
If Olivia had left with her
and Nicholas being on good terms, and Nicholas knew that Olivia wanted to take
the necklace with her, would the palace employee still have forbidden Olivia
from taking it with her in that case? Should Olivia have technically been able
to take the necklace with her since Nicholas had given it to her as a gift, and
it was the palace employee who was wrong for telling her that she wasn’t
allowed to keep the necklace? If that really is a policy that exists, why
wasn’t Nicholas aware of that policy? Finally, if that really is a policy that
exists and Nicholas is aware of it, why didn’t it occur to him that perhaps
Olivia had wanted to take the necklace with her, but she had been told that she
couldn’t take it with her? Ultimately, I just felt like the whole thing with
Olivia being told that she couldn’t take the necklace with her, and Nicholas
viewing Olivia leaving without the necklace as a reason not to go after her, as
being a rather contrived way to prolong the drama during the final part of the
book. I’m hesitant to reveal too much about where the large amount of money that
Olivia’s family acquired actually came from, but I will say that that plot
point left me with a few more unanswered questions in addition to the ones that
I’ve already mentioned.
That being said, one of the
many things that I really like about Royally
Screwed is the overall pacing of the book, especially when it came to the
few times throughout the book where something happened that made it look like
Nicholas and Olivia’s relationship was over. I felt like Chase did a pretty
good job of not dragging things out too long for the most part, which was definitely
very refreshing to see. Sometimes I feel like authors who write books that are
a part of the romance genre tend to drag the drama that exists in a couple’s
relationship out way too long, and that can be incredibly frustrating at times.
All things considered, Royally Screwed definitely serves as a
fantastic beginning to the Royally
series. While I’ve always thought that Emma Chase was a fantastic writer, the
overall quality of her writing for this book really left me thinking that she
has really honed her craft, even more than I thought she did with the Legal Briefs series; and especially if
you compare the quality of the writing for Royally
Screwed to the quality of her writing for the Tangled series. Both Nicholas and Olivia are very well written
characters that have great chemistry with each other. Nicholas’ character
development was executed perfectly, in my opinion. While I do think that this
book has some flaws, they’re all forgivable, as far as I’m concerned. I was
definitely very excited about this series prior to this book’s release, and Royally Screwed definitely lived up to
all of my expectations. I’m really anxious to see where the series goes from
here.
That being said, my score
for Royally Screwed is 10 out of 10.
