Review: Royally Screwed by Emma Chase (2016)

Royally, Book #1

Remember that time the crown prince of an imaginary European benevolent monarchy just randomly showed up at your family’s cafe and offered you $10,000 to have sex? No? Royally Screwed doesn’t get off to a great start, but it does get better. You see, Nicholas is the crown prince of said monarchy, and he has been instructed to announce his marriage by the end of the summer. This is precipitated by his brother being a mess, so Nicholas has to go to New York, a place he hates, to fetch his brother home. It’s not so easy being a prince. 

Nicholas is wasted one night after he’s arrived in New York, and he has sex on the brain (like, all the time), so he makes a rude offer to Olivia, who has been taking care of her family’s struggling business and has no idea who Nicholas actually is. They’re both immediately sexually attracted to each other, but Olivia is not into sexist assholes, so Nicholas is a huge disappointment. Fortunately Nicholas wakes up and realizes what a disappointment to himself he’s been, and he apologizes to Olivia the next morning. She accepts the apologies but it still takes a little doing on Nicholas’s part to convince her to go on a date with him. 

Because they are attracted to each other but have to work a little bit to overcome their unsavory beginnings, they don’t immediately hop into bed. And given the quantity of sex they have once they do hop into bed, this sex hiatus allows them to reveal little parts of themselves to each other and to grow comfortable with each other, developing a relationship based on more than just amazing, no-holds-barred sex. I have absolutely read books with too much sex, but typically that’s because there’s very little to the story or relationship other than sex. Royally Screwed doesn’t suffer from this fault, so the healthy approach to a fun sex life was a positive aspect of the book. This is also probably aided by the alternating first person perspective narration, which provides insight into more of their feelings than third person usually does. 

What’s the problem then? Other than the fact that Olivia and Nicholas live in different countries on different continents, Nicholas must marry a virgin of noble birth because of course he must. At first Nicholas and Olivia are just fooling around, but things get serious (naturally), and Nicholas must confess that he’s got to get married. So they agree to have the summer together. Then that’s cut short by Nicholas’s brother’s arrest. So they agree for Olivia to have a summer vacation in Wessco (the not-English, not-Scottish constitutional monarchy). As I hope you would imagine if you have read any romance novels ever, there’s never a good time to say goodbye. There’s also never a good time to ask the woman you love to be your mistress so you can marry some other woman though, so that’s a toughy. 

Read for a good time. 

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