I haven’t read much, if any, “secret royalty” romance. I happened upon Royally Yours via social media and fell in love with the cover. And I was even more pleasantly surprised that the black woman on the cover was the princess. I was eager to dive into this story.
Royally Yours is a good, cheesy romance filled with cute fluff between Ellie and Melody. Though I did feel there wasn’t as much relationship development as I would’ve liked. The two young women have a meet-cute at a farmer’s market and it’s attraction at first site. There’s flirting and longing glances, but the budding romance feels more slow than slow burn. But when the two women finally get together? Utterly adorable.
What annoyed me most about the books was Ellie’s mishandling of finding out Melody’s secret. Yes, Melody did technically lie about who she was, but that was more for Melody’s protection and wanting a bit of anonymity than hurting Ellie. It’s not like Melody was dating someone else or, god forbid, some kind of international assassin. She was a young girl who wanted a bit of freedom from her overbearing life, and I didn’t understand how Ellie couldn’t understand that.
Another thing that bothered me was how Melody’s issues with her parents, her mother in particular, weren’t really resolved. At least, not to my satisfaction. In real life, you don’t always get to have closure with people who’ve hurt you, but Melody’s mother refusing to acknowledge who Melody was and chose to love kind of soured the happily ever after ending for me.
Read this if you liked movies like The Prince & Me or the Hallmark Channel movie, A Royal Christmas. Cheesy romance with a dash of melodrama, but with queer women.
3 Stars
