Synopsis:
Nicholas Arthur Frederick Edward Pembrook, Crowned Prince of Wessco, aka His Royal Hotness, is wickedly charming, devastatingly handsome, and unabashedly arrogant; hard not to be when people are constantly bowing down to you.
Then, one snowy night in Manhattan, the prince meets a dark haired beauty who doesn’t bow down. Instead, she throws a pie in his face.
Nicholas wants to find out if she tastes as good as her pie, and this heir apparent is used to getting what he wants.
Dating a prince isn’t what waitress Olivia Hammond ever imagined it would be.
There’s a disapproving queen, a wildly inappropriate spare heir, relentless paparazzi, and brutal public scrutiny. While they’ve traded in horse drawn carriages for Rolls Royces, and haven’t chopped anyone’s head off lately, the royals are far from accepting of this commoner.
But to Olivia, Nicholas is worth it.
Nicholas grew up with the whole world watching, and now Marriage Watch is in full force. In the end, Nicholas has to decide who he is and, more importantly, who he wants to be: a King… or the man who gets to love Olivia forever.
If you need some light and frothy romance in your life, then you will love Emma Chase’s latest story and her very funny, very male POV!!
Prince Nicholas is the heir to the throne in a fictional country. This story is a pure fairytale, down to the names of some of the characters to the plot. Poor Nicholas has followed the rules his whole life. And now it is time for to select a wife, but only because his grandmother the Queen is forcing him to finally settle down. He can’t bear the thought of it and takes off for the United States for one last “fling”.
“If you were told that the world as you knew it—life as you knew it—would end in five months, what would you do? You’d make the most of the time you had left, of course. Do everything you wanted to do—everyone you wanted to do—for as long as you could. Until time was up. Well…looks like I’ve got a plan, after all.”
Olivia is hard-working “commoner” who runs her family business in New York. She is having a tough time keeping the struggling diner going. Nicholas happens to stumble into the diner after a wild night of partying and is stunned by the beautiful Olivia.
If Helen launched a thousand ships, this girl could raise a thousand hard-ons.
Of course, their relationship is NOT supposed to happen! He can’t possibly fall in love with a commoner! So they agree to a brief summer fling. Olivia is not easily impressed, but even she realizes that they both live in very different worlds.
…I grab his arm, shaking. “I don’t think you understand—you live in a freaking castle!”
“Technically, it’s a palace. Castles were built for defense, palaces more for the monarch to hold court in appropriate grandeur.”
And Jesus, I want to stick my tongue down his throat. “Have I told you how hot it is when you roll out the royal facts?”
‘Royally Screwed’ is a very charming fairytale with a healthy does of Emma Chase’s trademark spicy humor. All of the characters also seem very down-to-earth with many of the same problems and heartaches as everyone else.
Nicholas knows he lives in an insulated world and he does his best to keep Olivia safe. But wicked characters are lurking everywhere, in the form of the paparazzi, jealous old girlfriends and even the Queen herself. Their relationship seems doomed from the start.
“It not easy being my friend; it’s even more difficult being my lover. Think of me as a walking exploding bomb—anything near to me will eventually become collateral damage.”
What I enjoyed about this book was the witty, sexy, fast-paced dialogue and the engaging supporting characters. There’s also a wonderful theme of family and duty running through this story that I really loved.
The author has created a very relatable fairytale that provided an escape from real life. The ending was a lovely surprise and along with Nicholas and Olivia, I adored his brother Henry. I can’t wait to read his story!
“She looks into my eyes and I’m lost. Wrecked. Owned. There’s no thought, no desire—except to please her. Make her see stars and touch heaven.”