Heather CocksBesprekingen

really quite good

Spoiled was a snarky, amusing novel at first, but the second time, my opinion changed.

This novel reminds me The Clique series. Molly, similar to Claire Lyons, moves to a new place where she gets tormented by the fabulous rich girl Brooke. In this case, Molly and Brooke turn out to be half-sisters.

Molly is a bland character. She has no interesting aspects of her personality. Claire does. Claire likes photography, candies, wearing Keds and Gap clothing and overall sensitive girl who desires to be fabulous as Massie. What's fascinating about Molly other than she's the daughter of a movie actor? Nothing. The novel hinted she likes running, but she never tried out for track. Her dull personality was hard to root for no matter how hard the authors tried.

Brooke in the other hand, is sassy, self-conceited, glamorous girl with a dark secret. She has an absent mother, whom she writes every day, but never sends. She wants to become like her father. When Molly arrives, Brooke becomes extremely competitive towards her. All she wants is to make her father proud, especially since she's the director of the school production My Fair Lady.

Other than the sharp-tongued quotes and Argula, Brooke's best friend who is Tyra Bank's doppelganger, Spoiled is another book about Hollywood with no surprising elements.

Read The Clique series by Lisi Harrison. The quotes and characters are more memorable and snarkier.

On my reading list forever and moved to the front with the passing of the Queen. I had no idea that there’s a vague subplot around royal funerals.

Mix of audio and reading - listened to a huge Chuck during a 3 hour solo long run and it was perfect for that.

I could barely remember the original book and was expecting this to be a stand alone about Freddie/Harry but it was really a continuation of Bex and Nick and the early years of their married life. There’s much more plot and intrigue here than expected and o think it’s better for it not being just another romance. I am also a longtime fan of The Fug Girls so I enjoyed seeing them shine through in some of the details like the fake Max & Wax, all the attention to baseball, the bake off, and the occasional mention of blue suits and lame shoes.

If you enjoy following William, Kate and Harry in the news you will totally enjoy this book. It's a perfect beach/pool book and tells a predictable tale with a twist at the end that I didn't see coming.

It's not great literature but it's fun and cute and I was happy to buy it because I love going to the authors' fashion blog Go Fug Yourself to see their funny commentary on fashion & royalty around the world.

Thumbs up!

Gossip-y, dramatic, and fun.

Overall, this was good, I guess. As an old GFY fan, I think my expectations were too high. The audiobook narrator was great.

The two main things I disliked:

1. Lacey is the worst. I think we're supposed to sympathize with her and forgive her, but I couldn't. In the beginning, she's supposed to be smart and ruthlessly driven -- it made no sense to me that she would drop out of med school and throw her life away to ride Bex's coattails. Why does no one ever really call her out on that? I wanted Lacey to have more of a reckoning. Just like Clive (who gets the full villain treatment), Lacey felt entitled to get something out of Bex. She treated Bex like a means to an end. Then all is forgiven too suddenly.

2. I used to read Go Fug Yourself regularly and I remember it being really funny, so I expected this book to be at least equal parts rom and com. There were some funny parts, but it was more angsty than amusing. At one point in the book Bex references [b:Bridget Jones's Diary|227443|Bridget Jones's Diary (Bridget Jones, #1)|Helen Fielding|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1558869586l/227443._SY75_.jpg|3185154] and it made me wish I was re-reading that instead. It's occurring to me just now that maybe the audiobook narrator didn't sell the funny parts very well and I would've laughed more if I had read the print book.

So I won't be reading the sequel, but I might go watch The Crown now.

These are just so well done for soapy royal goodness

This one lives up to the hype, it's adorable and definitely the top of the genre going deeper than most. Sure it has it's silly soap opera moments but it's still lovable

I thought this book was utterly delightful (except for one incredibly heartbreaking and well-written part), like a long-awaited blockbuster movie with a fantastic cast in which the plot hardly matters. Except in "The Royal We," the plot DOES matter (I cared, anyway!), and it moved at a pace that kept it fascinating and nearly unputdownable. :) I appreciate that the authors set this fictionalized version of the British royal family in England, not a made-up country; in fact, they went to great lengths to create a believable family tree. Unlike so many comparable styles of novels these days, the authors fully developed the minor characters, and made the main characters realistic (somewhat faulted) but still completely endearing. It was a fun story, and a perfect break from the really heavy recent book club picks I've had to slog through.

The only reason I didn't give it a fifth star is that I can't bear to shelve it with my other 5-star favorites--not the fault of the story or its writers, just my own literary preferences.

This follow up to The Royal We is about What Comes After. When the book opens, Bex and Nick are on the run, hiding from the fallout of the scandal that broke on their wedding day, and threatens to break the family. I couldn't help comparing what happens in these books with the real story of William and Kate, and in this case, it feels like the authors are also inspired by Harry and Meghan. The similarity stops when the runaway couple are summoned back to the fold because of a health crisis, and then their relationship begins to be truly tested. As in the first book, this is where this book becomes a Romance. The up and down, the will-they-or-won't-they, with the constant threat of exposure by the press, but with an undercurrent of passion and devotion. They just have to get over themselves to let it all work out. Eventually, a bombshell family secret ends up trumping all the other crap, and the family (and the couple) bond over something that should have torn them apart. I found this a little less crisp and clever than the first book, but that's to be expected in a sequel, especially one in which the romance evolves from youthful discovery to mature family matters. I am a sucker for any fiction that offers a glimpse behind the curtain, and this definitely contains some plot points that make me hope that is how royal families actually are.

I'm so into everything royal right now that I just couldn't pass this novel up. And of course, it turned out to be quite riveting for me.

The main heroine, Rebecca, sounded immature to me in the first half of the book, but later it grew up on me and I kind of liked her. Although I can't say the same about Lacey - the twin sister who was OK with Bex being overshadowed by Lacey and following her like her tail, but not OK with being in second place herself and who even took umbrage at her sister for that. And even though she's kind of rehabilitated by the end of the story, I can't like her after all the things she did.

I liked that the characters were similar to the actual royal family, although they were not exactly the same. And this story made me look at everything royal from the other perspective. What looks bright and happy and luxurious and fairytale-like, isn't always the same for people living that life.

2.5 Stars

I completely adore this book. Even though I am a diehard (American) royalist, I never entertained princess fantasies after the age of 9 (other than hoping I’d run into Prince Harry while on a London vacation when I was 16), but I am a sucker for a well-written and convincing royal love story. Thankfully, The Royal We delivers on both counts.I’ve been burned by terrible royalist fanfiction over the years, drivel full of simpering and annoying characters that made we want to gag (you can be royal and still have a personality you know…) and the last time I read a decent royal princess book was when I read Ella Enchanted and Just Ella back to back and over and over again when I was in the 4th grade. That was 16 years ago and I’d been searching ever since. Finally, my search is over!

Bex is a modern American young woman (props to the authors for writing awesome college characters!) who jumps at the chance to study art at Oxford as an exchange student from Cornell – yep, she’s witty and brilliant too! She thoroughly embodies what I think of when I think of a model New Adult protagonist – like Mary Poppins, she’s practically perfect in every way! And by practically perfect, I mean she’s real, she has flaws, she can be impulsive and indecisive and questioning but also strong and fierce and proud to be herself. Nick is charming, and also particularly perfect in his flaws as well. To the point where I questioned whether or not Heather Cocks and/or Jessica Morgan knew Prince William and if he was anything like Nick in his early twenties.

Beyond the two main characters (as The Royal We is told from Bex’s point of view, clearly it’s mostly about her and Nick and their relationship), the supporting cast are equally intriguing (oftentimes more so than B & N) and never fall flat, unless they’re literally falling flat on their faces, which might happen occasionally… Prince Freddie behaves in what I imagine to be a very Prince Harry like fashion, their father is cold and cruel (which does contrast to the image of slightly goofy Charles) and the addition of a mother character on the royal end is fascinating. Bex’s family is charming and clearly love her unconditionally, but it’s her twin sister that readers see the most of, and, well, Lacey’s not too thrilled to be giving up the spotlight. A good bit of sisterly drama unfolds which, having a sister, I could thoroughly appreciate, and it a strong point of the story to see their relationship change, evolve, and, eventually, deteriorate, though there is hope for future reconciliation!

I could read The Royal We over and over again and probably not get bored, for at least the first three re-reads. Though now, Laura is reading it, so given that she had at first hoped I’d mock it, we’ll have to see how she weighs in in her review in a few weeks!

I knew almost immediately that I was going to love The Heir Affair – the whole thing opens with Bex and Nick hiding out (after the media storm surrounding their wedding) in the small Scottish town of Wigtown, staying at the B&B above Open Book. While this probably doesn’t inspire delighted squeals of joy from most, other than the fact that it sounds cool, Open Book is run as a companion to Book Shop, owned and operated by Shaun Bythell, author of Diary of a Bookseller and Confessions of a Bookseller, two memoirs that offer remarkable insight into my chosen profession. So as a bookseller, I got really excited about Bex and Nick’s chosen hide out in Scotland.

But that was just the very beginning. With a gap of just more than five years (an eternity in publishing time) between the release of The Royal We and The Heir Affair, Heather and Jessica knew they’d have to give readers a bit of time to play catch up with Nick and Bex and they do a tremendous job easing readers back into their lives and rehashing the events of The Royal We. The bulk of The Heir Affair takes place in the two years immediately following The Royal We, and as both are set in “real time,” it’s kind of fun to be transported back to 2016 in the book, before the dumpster fire of 2020.

Eventually, as they must, Nick and Bex return to the firm (no Meghan & Harry cut and run here), and are reunited with friend and foe alike, from Nick’s brother Freddie and Bex’s twin sister Lacey, the brothers’ taciturn father, to the centenarian queen mum obsessed with Idris Elba, and all their friends (one of whom is obsessed with getting onto a GBBO inspired baking show), it is refreshing to be reunited with so many favorite characters.

After the expected roughish patch between Bex & Nick, and the two of them and the family, the book moves along at a decent clip through time until “the heir affair” takes center stage. With everything Bex and Nick have been through, there was no way this was going to be smooth sailing. But Heather & Jessica present their situation with so much kindness and empathy that I found myself bawling my eyes out at certain parts (I don’t want to spoil anything, but you’ll know pretty quickly which scenes I mean).

While The Royal We delved into the melodramatic soap opera type of story pretty quickly, The Heir Affair is not nearly as over dramatic until the last hundred pages or so where a secret is revealed about now deceased members of the royal family and has a potentially devastating effect on the future heirs. It gets a little trite, especially when, by this point, we really just want to see a happy ending, but Heather and Jessica handle their chosen curveball well. I walked away from The Heir Affair enjoying it more than The Royal We and I think it will become a favorite of anyone who chooses to pick it up as well.

I could not put it down. For something that is essentially royal family fanfiction, it was incredibly well-written, engaging, and so very very compelling. The characters were wonderful and felt like real people, warts and quirks and all.

Super fun. I imagine this will become a comfort read of mine.½

I really enjoyed the authors' The Royal We and was intrigued by their YA books they had previously published. Not terribly surprisingly, this is nothing like the 450+ page tome of the epic romance of Rebecca Porter and Prince Nicolas. Instead, this is definitely a YA tale, short yet still manages to not be complete fluff.

Cocks and Morgan, through the story of Brooke Berlin and her newly discovered half-sister Molly Dix, show just how utterly shallow and vapid Hollywood is. It's a pretty predictable storyline but it was still fun to read. One thing that I wanted--and this is true for many YA novels, particularly contemporary YA novels, which seem to be written deliberately short and sweet--is more pages. I wanted more plot, more depth, characterization, etc. As it was, it was a fun story. If it had been longer and the authors allowed the space to fully flesh out the story and the characters--given what they accomplished with 100 more pages in The Royal We--would have been spectacular.

The sequel to Spoiled follows Max, who was a supporting character in the last book, and Brooke as the two concoct a deception for Max to ghost-write Brooke's Hollywood insider blog so that Max can earn enough money for a NYC writing program and Brooke can gain some fame and notice in the industry.

I enjoyed this more than the first book. I liked Max - she is down to earth, and driven, and sarcastically funny. Brooke has also grown since the last book and I found myself loving the character development arcs for both characters. Because both matured and grew in this book in a way that was absent in the last book.

Also, I was equal parts horrified and amused by the thought of Hollywood turning Nancy Drew into a gritty noir story, with Nancy a kid living on the streets who ends up solving a murder. It is so utterly ridiculous...that I can actually see somebody in Hollywood doing that.

This had more substance than I expected. The writing style reminded me a little of the contemporary parts of the Pink Carnation series. Definitely worth a read.

After reading The Royal We, I was eager to get my hands on The Heir Affair. Just as I did with The Royal We, I couldn't stop turning the pages. I loved every last bit of royal drama.

At times, the story seemed to be drug out a bit longer than necessary, but ultimately, it did not effect my love for it.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this and give my honest opinion!

What a mess! And I liked it. This is juicy Lifetime drama disguised as a Hallmark miniseries. Sex, scandal, lots of alcohol which didn't help either front. I laughed. I gasped. I couldn't stop thinking about this ridiculous and stupid book. I regret nothing and everything.

I'm SO reading this

It took me a bit to get into this, I almost considered giving up. But around the halfway point I was riveted and couldn't put it down. So many great moments that made me laugh out loud and a lot of great secondary characters that I wanted entire books dedicated to!

I was so surprised by how much I liked this book. Well, I knew I'd "like" it - because I know the authors' other work and love it. But I really LOVED it. The characters and story was more developed than I thought it would be. But still light-hearted and fun. I would recommend this to ANYONE as a summer read.

Silly. Too long. Mindless in a good way.

I meant to get back to this as it was a reasonable rom com. At the same time I found it a bit cringe worthy in modelling itself on Will and Kate's story. As much as I was glad they might have had a rom com worthy romance, I felt an uneasy sense of intruding into their lives!½