Book Review: Royally Screwed (Book #1 in the Royally series) by Emma Chase

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.

Sidebarred (A Legal Briefs Novella): The gang’s all back, and I couldn’t be happier (My thoughts on Book #3.5 in the Legal Briefs series)

Right off the bat, I have to say that as much as I loved Appealed, and while I thought that it was a fantastic ending to the Legal Briefs series, I still wasn’t quite ready for the series to end; mainly because I was loving the series so much. That’s definitely one of the main reasons why I was really excited when Emma Chase announced that she had written a novella for the Legal Briefs series. While I did think that Appealed was a great way to end the Legal Briefs series, I think that Sidebarred was an even better ending to the series.

Prior to Sidebarred’s release, I initially got the impression that Emma Chase had written the novella with the story shifting back and forth between each of the main characters from the series. It was only a few weeks before Sidebarred’s release that I found out that that wasn’t the case, and that Sidebarred was written solely from Jake’s point of view. Personally, as much as I love Stanton, Sofia and Brent, I think that Jake was definitely the perfect choice when it comes to which character from the series should be the protagonist of Sidebarred. At its core, the character development and internal conflict that Jake underwent throughout Sustained was all about wanting to be a part of Chelsea and the kids’ lives, while also thinking that he wasn’t capable of being a family man with a wife and kids.

Sustained pretty much ended with Jake realizing that he had become a family man without even realizing it, thanks largely in part to the “intervention” that Stanton, Sofia and Brent had for him. I love that we got a brief glimpse in one scene from Appealed of what Jake was like after he had embraced the idea of being a family man, with him acting like a protective father to one of the teenage girls in the family when she came to his work with him, and there was a boy there that could have easily made advances towards her. However, that whole scene was written from Brent’s point of view, so we didn’t get that much insight into what had happened with Jake, Chelsea and the kids after Sustained ended. That being said, Emma Chase did a fantastic job of really giving the readers of the Legal Briefs series an in depth look at Jake’s life as a husband to Chelsea, and a father figure to Chelsea’s nieces and nephews in Sidebarred.

When it comes to the plot of Sidebarred, while I’m not sure that the plot and the book as a whole would have worked as well had it been a full-length novel; I thought that it worked perfectly as a novella. The reason I say this is because while Jake and Chelsea do face various problems throughout the book that were genuinely interesting and got me completely invested in the story, the plot of the book and the conflict that Jake and Chelsea face in Sidebarred wasn’t big and dramatic enough to sustain a full-length novel, in my opinion. The plot of the book revolves primarily around the fact that Jake and Chelsea decide to have a baby after Chelsea had thought that she might be pregnant, only to discover that she wasn’t pregnant after all when she took a pregnancy test. I could be wrong about the exact timespan of the book, but Sidebarred takes place over the span of about a year and follows Jake and Chelsea as they try to get pregnant and then follows them through the pregnancy, while they also deal with problems involving the kids and their work. Nothing truly dramatic happens to them or any of the other characters throughout the book. Honestly, I’m perfectly okay with that because I think that the problems that Jake and Chelsea face both as a couple, as the problems that they deal with individually, while also raising Chelsea’s six nieces and nephews, are all very relatable. Plus, I’m really glad that Chase didn’t have Jake and Chelsea dealing with any major drama and angst in their marriage, such as having one of them cheat on the other, or at least be tempted to cheat.

This just might be one of the best books that you’ll ever read (My thoughts on The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner)

Before I get into my review of Jeff Zentner’s book The Serpent King, I’d like to start off by briefly talking about how I found out about this book. While I originally saw The Serpent King when I was looking around at Barnes & Noble one day and both the cover and the title of the book caught my attention, I didn’t buy the book at that point in time. I ended up getting it in the March OwlCrate box. In case you don’t know what OwlCrate is, it’s a monthly YA book box. There’s a different theme for the box each month, for example the theme for March was “Writer’s Block”. Each month the box includes a recently released hardback YA book, along with three to five items centered around the theme for that month. Here’s a picture of everything that came in the March box that I posted on Instagram to give you an idea of what kind of stuff they put in the boxes each month.

Here's what came in the March OwlCrate box that I got in the mail today. I'm super excited about the book that they picked this month, which is The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner. :)

A photo posted by Taylor Glissman (@tmswriter6) on Mar 19, 2016 at 2:22pm PDT

This past December was my first month of OwlCrate, and the February box is probably my favorite of the boxes that I’ve gotten so far. The theme for that month was “Sci-fi Love”. Plans start at $29.99, plus shipping. The people who run OwlCrate are really nice, and they’re very good at answering any questions that people may have about OwlCrate on Twitter. I highly recommend signing up for OwlCrate, especially if you’re a fan of YA books. If you’re interested in learning more about OwlCrate or signing up for it, you can check out their website here. For the record, I wasn’t asked by the people who run OwlCrate to promote their business on my blog; I’m only mentioning OwlCrate here because I’m really loving OwlCrate, especially now that I’m mostly reviewing books for my blog instead of TV shows. With all that said, here are my thoughts on Jeff Zentner’s book The Serpent King.

Cress: This sure isn’t your typical Rapunzel retelling (My thoughts on book #3 in The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer)

Let me preface this review by saying that out of all the fairy tales that Marissa Meyer incorporated into The Lunar Chronicles, the story of Rapunzel is definitely the one that I know the least about. That being said, I feel like the fact that I wasn’t very familiar with the story of Rapunzel actually enhanced my enjoyment of Cress in a lot of ways. When I was reading Cinder and Scarlet, I found myself constantly thinking about the original stories of Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood and was frequently wondering how Marissa Meyer might or might not incorporate and reimagine various elements from those stories into the series. However, when I was reading Cress, I just enjoyed it as its own unique story without ever really comparing and contrasting it to the story of Rapunzel.

Before I go any further, I’d like to just go right ahead and say that Cress is definitely my favorite book in the series so far. If you’ve read my review for Scarlet, you may remember that one of the things that I talked about in my review is that the book wasn’t quite what I was expecting when it comes to it serving as a follow-up to Cinder and a continuation of the series. Cress, however, was much more in line with what I had originally been expecting the books that followed Cinder to be like prior to actually reading Scarlet. One of my biggest criticisms about Scarlet is that I felt like Cinder was kind of hogging the spotlight throughout the book, and when that wasn’t the case, the book felt like too much of an ensemble piece for my taste. I really feel like Marissa Meyer should have focused at least a little more on Scarlet and Wolf in Scarlet than she did. While Cress is also very much an ensemble piece, I think Meyer did a much better job of putting most of the focus of the book on Cress, as well as Thorne since he’s Cress’ love interest in the series.

One of things that I have to give this book a lot of praise for is the fact that the story had really great pacing, in my opinion. There was a lot of action and different things happening throughout the book, but the story never felt like it was moving too slow or too fast. Plus, all of the storylines that were going on throughout the book were very interesting and engaging, so I never found myself getting bored, or having trouble paying attention to the story as I was listening to the audiobook version of Cress.

Crescent “Cress” Moon Darnel is definitely a very likable and interesting character. In a story that’s full of fantasy elements, she really felt like a real person and a well-rounded character, especially when it came to her feelings for Thorne. Given the fact that Cress had lived a rather sheltered life, being stuck in a satellite in space for pretty much her entire life, it made a lot of sense to me that she would have somewhat of a naïve view of the world and the stories that she had read about Thorne in the news. She believed that Thorne had had noble reasons for the various questionable things that he had done over the years, often breaking various laws in the process, when in reality Thorne’s motives for his actions had typically been rather self-serving.

Appealed: It’s official! The Legal Briefs series is even better than the Tangled series! (My thoughts on Book #3 in the Legal Briefs series by Emma Chase)

As I said in my review for Sustained, while I thought that it was Emma Chase’s best book yet, I was still open to the possibility that I might end up thinking that she topped herself yet again with Appealed once I read it. Right off the bat, I have to say that I’m very glad that I kept my mind open to that possibility, because that’s exactly what ended up happening. As much as I loved Sustained, I definitely found myself loving this book even more than I loved Sustained in some ways.

One of the things that I’ve always loved about Emma Chase’s books, going all the way back to Tangled, is the fact that she often writes her books in such a way that it feels like the protagonists of her books are talking to the reader in the narrative and telling them a story. This particular aspect of Emma Chase’s writing style is definitely more noticeable at times than others, and it was definitely very noticeable in Appealed. The reason why I really love it when she has the protagonists of her books basically talk to the reader from time to time, is because it really helps to draw me into the story and become very invested in the characters and the story itself. This particular aspect of Chase’s writing style is definitely one of the many things that made me fall in love with the book Tangled when I read it, and it was one of the many things that has really made me fall in love with her writing in general. While I’ve always loved it when she has her protagonists basically talk to the reader, I especially love how she handled that particular aspect of her writing style for this book. It was something that really made me fall in love with the character Brent as I was reading Appealed.

I feel like I’ve made it pretty clear by this point that one of the biggest reasons why I love Emma Chase’s books so much is because all of her books are written partially, if not entirely, from the guy’s point of view. Brent is yet another great character, and I’d say that I love Brent about as much as I loved Jake in Sustained. Brent is an all around great character, and I loved Brent’s internal narrative, because I often times found the things that he was thinking rather amusing. However, the thing that I loved the most about Brent is how he acted towards Kennedy, especially at the beginning of the book before they really get together, his therapist, Dr. Waldo Bingingham, and his butler, Harrison. I found it rather amusing that Brent was so hung up on the fact that his therapist’s first name is Waldo. I could also kind relate to that, because I definitely have a tendency to get hung up on what a person’s name is sometimes, especially if it’s a name that’s kind of unique. I also really enjoyed the dynamic between Brent and Harrison, because I definitely saw a little bit of myself in Brent when it comes to how he acted towards Harrison as well.

Sustained: Emma Chase did it! She topped Tangled! (My thoughts on Book #2 in the Legal Briefs series by Emma Chase)

If you’ve read my review for Overruled, you’ll know that I said that I thought that it might be very difficult, if not impossible, for Emma Chase to top Tangled when it comes to deciding which of her books is my favorite and how I would rank each of them. The reason I’m bringing this up is because I’m very excited to say that Emma Chase did it. She completely topped Tangled with Sustained, and I definitely think that Sustained is her best book yet. That being said, I’ll admit that perhaps I’m being a bit premature in saying that Sustained is Emma Chase’s book yet since I haven’t read Appealed at this point in time. However, if I had to say which of her books is my favorite at the moment, it would definitely be Sustained; that being said, I’m totally open to the possibility that I’ll end up thinking that she topped herself yet again once I read Appealed.

Based on Overruled and Sustained alone, I have to say that I definitely think that the Legal Briefs series is even better than the Tangled series. As much as I love the Tangled series, it’s not without its flaws, and I feel like the quality of the writing for the Tangled series as a whole definitely had its share of ups and downs. Emma Chase’s writing for the Legal Briefs series on the other hand is definitely a lot stronger and better than even her best writing for the Tangled series was, in my opinion. Things that I felt could have been handled better in Twisted and Tied in particular are handled a lot better in the Legal Briefs series.

For starters, I’m really glad that she switched back and forth between Stanton and Sofia’s points of view throughout Overruled instead of writing most of the book from one character’s point of view and then suddenly switching to a different character’s point of view towards the very end of the book for the epilogue like she did with Twisted. Plus, as I said in my review for Overruled, I thought that Stanton’s dislike of JD was much more understandable and easier to sympathize with than Drew’s dislike of Billy was after Tangled. If you ask me, the resolution of Stanton’s issues with JD was also handled a lot better than Drew’s hatred towards Billy was resolved in Tied.

When it comes to Sustained, there really is a lot to love about this book, and it’s honestly kind of hard for me to know where to start when it comes to talking about what I love about this book. For starters, one thing that I’ve always felt that Emma Chase really excels at when it comes to her books is being able to pretty much instantly get the readers interested and invested in the story right off the bat. Whenever I’ve read one of her books, I’ve always been able to get invested in the story within the first few paragraphs, if not the first few sentences of the book, and that was definitely the case with this book. It’s definitely a good thing that Chase’s books aren’t the kind of books where the reader has to power through approximately 50 or more pages before the story finally starts to get interesting, especially considering the fact that her books are all less than 300 pages long. That’s something I’ve really come to appreciate about Chase’s books since in addition to all of the books that I’ve reviewed in roughly the past three to four months, possibly longer than that, I’ve also been reading the book The Swan Gondola by Timothy Schaffert so I can review it as well. I’m currently seventy pages into the book, and I’m just now finally starting to get into the book.

Overruled: Good news, Everybody! Emma Chase is back with a new book series, and I couldn’t be happier. :) (My thoughts on Book #1 in The Legal Briefs series by Emma Chase)

Right off the bat, I have to say that I really wish that I had read Overruled a lot sooner. I got it on Amazon as soon as it was released back in April of 2015, but I didn’t read it until now. That being said, I loved this book so much that I ended up listening to the entire audiobook version of Overruled in less than a day when I read it this past Tuesday. I immediately got sucked into the story, and I quickly became determined to finish the book before I went to bed that night. I’ve seen a number of people who do book reviews on YouTube describe various books as being “book crack” before, and I’d definitely say that this book was definitely “book crack” for me. A line that I’ve used in the past to describe my enjoyment of various books is, “This book is more addictive than cigarettes”, and this is definitely a book that I would use that description to describe what I thought of it.

Emma Chase has definitely become one of my favorite authors, and one of the main reasons why she has become one of my favorite authors is due to the fact that a lot of her books are written at least partially, if not entirely, from the guy’s point of view. That’s one of the reasons why I say Chase’s writing has often felt really fresh to me. Writing romance novels from the guy’s point of view isn’t something that I saw writers doing with romance novels until I discovered Emma Chase’s Tangled series. I’ve been a huge fan of romance novels for years, but there’s no denying that it’s a genre that’s full of clichés and is rather lacking in originality. By writing a lot of her books from the guy’s point of view, I feel like Chase is really offering people something new.

Being a guy, I think it’s pretty safe to say that I don’t fit the target audience for romance novels, but I still love them. I’ve always been a real sucker for romance novels and movies that are romantic comedies, because I’ve definitely always been a bit of a hopeless romantic. However, when it comes to Emma Chase’s books and the fact that she has written quite a few books from the guy’s point of view, it really makes it easier for me personally to relate the protagonists of her books compared to a lot of the protagonists of other romance novels out there. Plus, I feel like she really does a great job of capturing the way men think with her writing.

When it comes to the overall writing for the book, I love this book almost as much as I loved Tangled, which is definitely my favorite book in the Tangled series. If you’d like to read my review for Tangled, you can read that here. That being said, despite the fact that I didn’t like this book quite as much as I loved Tangled, I’m not sure that I would call Tangled “book crack” for me personally. I didn’t get so sucked into it that I decided to devote almost an entire day pretty much just to reading Tangled like I did with this book; that being said, there’s probably always going to be a special place in my heart for Tangled.