Review--Royal Blood by Aimee Carter

 

An American girl becomes the British Monarchy’s greatest nightmare in this thrilling new series where royal scandals just got deadlier.

As the King of England’s illegitimate daughter, 17-year-old Evan Bright knows a thing or two about keeping secrets.

But when she’s forced to spend the summer in London with her father and the royal family, who aren’t exactly thrilled she exists, her identity is mysteriously revealed, and suddenly the world is dying to know every juicy lie the press prints about her.

After a fun night turns deadly and Evan becomes the primary suspect in a murder investigation, the escalating rumors and fallout threaten to tear her life apart. As she fights to uncover the truth about what happened, she discovers royal secrets that are even more scandalous than she imagined – secrets that could change the monarchy forever.

And her own may be next.

 

 

TRIGGER WARNING: As a heads up there is a scene in here that depicts an attempted rape. I just wanted to give other readers advance notice of this. It is an attempt, and is ultimately what leads to Evan's troubles, but it's still pretty intense.

 

It took me too long as usual, but I finally read Aimee Carter's Royal Blood! I positively LOVED her Goddess Test series and The Blackcoat Rebellion trilogy that I decided I would give her new mystery series a try. As I sort of expected, it did have a bit of a slow start and took awhile for the mystery to get underfoot but I suspect from here on out things will continue to be very interesting indeed!

Evan--Evangeline--is the illegitimate daughter of the King of England. Let's also note this is an entirely fictional set of  royalty we have here! It would have to be, lol. Evan has known this since she was a young child as she was bounced between many boarding schools, mainly due to her getting kicked out of them all. Her mother is ill and while she is still in her life, she is not able to care for Evan in the way a young girl should be cared for, so after her grandmother passed she was sent to boarding school after boarding school.

Then when her latest hijinx gets her into a bit too much trouble, she is unknowningly whisked away to England to spend the next month with her father and his "legitimate" family. To say Evan is less than pleased is putting it mildly. She doesn't get an overly warm welcome from her stepmother or half-sister, but her father, despite being caught off guard, is genuinely happy to see her.

And so begins a little over 100 pages of what I feel like is a contemporary novel where Evan gets adjusted to life in a palace. When her sister, Maisie, is somewhat "forced" to bring her out one night to party at a club, Evan meets the charming Jasper and is quite smitten with him. Having been to all girl schools for her life, Evan hasn't had much experience with boys, but knows that she likes them and she very much likes Jasper despite the looks her sister and cousins give her when she mentions it. Well, it's not long before Jasper lets his true colors show and they are not nice colors. As I mentioned before, he attempts to rape Evan, but with a bit of luck, she manages to escape and gets help from her sister's friend in getting out of a scary situation. 

It's not until the next morning, when Evan learns that Jasper is dead. Murdered. And Evan is now the number one suspect, just days after the public learned she was the illegitimate daughter of the king. With the help of Kit, her sister's cousin and the guy who helped get her to safety, Evan tries to remember what she can of that night and who could possibly want to kill Jasper and put the blame on her. As it turns out, Jasper was not liked so much. Meanwhile the papers continue to tear Evan apart and dig up every secret of hers that they can, including a family history even she did not know about.

Needless to say, after those first slow 100 pages, things really pick up after that! I had sort of figured by the tone and pacing of the book at the very beginning that it would be awhile before we got our murder and thus start the mystery element of the story. I was not disappointed in that area, but I will say that those first 100 pages were hard coming from a reader who does not enjoy contemporary. I can handle it when it leads to a mystery, even more so if it's a thriller with an edge of danger. This definitely falls more under mystery but still sinister in part as someone has no compunctions about throwing Evan under the bus to take the blame for a murder she did not commit.

There's also quite the family drama to be had, which you expect. When the King of England happens to have two daughters with two different mothers, but they happen to be born on the very same day? That part I thought was a stretch, but what can you do? I did find the latter half of the book to be much more interesting with the building mystery and Evan trying to figure out whodunit. There were more than a few suspects but I pretty much had my guess narrowed down to two people and one of them was it!

While things seem to get wrapped up fairly neat with a bow and all, we get a whopper of a bombshell at the very end! It's not one that will leave you hanging and desperate for the next book--which thankfully is out--but it is definitely one that will make the next book even more exciting and I cannot wait to find out what happens next! So I am pretty much sold on the series despite a lackluster start with this one. But again, I stipulate that it did not work for me as I am not a contemporary reader and the beginning was very mundane and ordinary. But it did give you an idea of Evan's character and I pretty much loved the girl from the start!

If you're a fan of British royalty and intrigue then this just might the mystery for you! I am glad that Carter created a whole new royal family (as to be expected really) as it just seems better that way. Even if the current royal family fit the bill, it would be weird and probably unethical or something too! Lol. Not sure how that all works out, but the story was definitely a worthy read!

Overall Rating 3.5/5 stars