ARC review: Royal Attraction by Tiffany Truitt

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Alexandra Ryans grew up with the British royal family.  As the daughter of an American ambassador, one of the King of England’s most trusted advisors, Aly’s life was, from a young age, intertwined with that of the princes.  In her teens, Aly harbored a not-so-secret crush on Aiden, the oldest prince, first in line for the throne.  But it was the youngest prince, Oliver, who became her best friend.  It was Oliver who was always there for her.  And it was Oliver who snuck into her heart without her even noticing.

Now, years after fleeing England to avoid a scandal (and embroiled in a scandal of her own back home), Aly is back in town for a royal wedding.  She’s avoided both Ollie and Aiden for three years, but now she’ll need to face her feelings – and her fears – head on.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD?

Last summer, I read and absolutely adored Tiffany Truitt’s Seven Ways to Lose Your Heart.  It was the perfect combination of sexy and swoony and heartbreaking and is still one of my favorite new adult books.  I talked about that book so much that I even annoyed myself, so when I saw a new ROYAL ROMANCE by Tiffany Truitt, I knew that I had to request it.  I might have had like eight other ARCs that I had to read first, but I finally got to it and it was good!  I might have liked SWtLYH a tad bit more, but a good road trip/music-based book will always win my heart.  (Pardon my pun.)

As the book begins, we have no idea what happened between Aly and the royal family.  All we know is that she’s been summoned home for her childhood friend’s wedding and she is just dreading going back.  The night in question comes back in bits and pieces through flashbacks from Aly’s point of view.  An argument here.  A kiss there.  A couple princes acting swoony.  It’s pretty easy to piece together the general gist of what happened, but it’s not until the end of the book that we get all of the details.

I, for one, could not decide who I liked more: responsible, selfless Aiden or wild, heartbroken Ollie.  Both of them have their own reasons for acting the way they do and for the various decisions they’ve made over the years.  Although I normally despise love triangles, Tiffany Truitt gave us two strong contenders in Aiden and Oliver.

I’m going to divert into music for a little bit here, but it’ll all make sense in the end.  (I hope.)  I went for a long walk today and was in a nostalgic mood, so I put on All Time Low’s So Wrong It’s Right, which has been one of my favorite albums for a good decade now.  When Shameless started playing, I was a little dumbfounded by how well some of the verses fit this book.  Take a listen, if you’d like:

Okay, I just fell into a YouTube black hole of All Time Low songs.  I was seventeen years old again for a little while there.  I’m back now, and here we go.

Aly spends a lot of time denying what Ollie’s words and actions mean.  Even when Ollie makes a blatantly obvious move, she finds another possible interpretation:

Tonight I’m finding a way
To make the things that you say
Just a little less obvious

And then there’s Ollie, who has a love/hate relationship with the press.  The press jumps on everything he does.  He can’t stand next to a woman without sixteen articles about his newest girlfriend popping up.  He can’t go to a party without a new article about his alcoholism or drug addiction coming out.  Ollie can always rely on the press to say something about him and he knows how to use that to his advantage, but that doesn’t mean he likes the attention:

I walk a fine line
Between the right and the real
They watch me closely
But talk is cheap here
Like a weightless currency
Your words don’t mean shit to me
I’m always cashing out

Anyway.  I hope that tangent made some sense.  Back to the review.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book.  Tiffany Truitt successfully messed with my heart again and I’m not even mad.  The only real criticism I have is that both guys were so great that I wasn’t even sure who I was supposed to be rooting for.  I hope the other brothers end up with their own books.

Also, I’d like to start an informal petition to get someone who looks more like the prince that’s described in the book on the cover.  I’ll nominate Andre Hamann.

Final rating: ★★★★☆

I received a free ARC of Royal Attraction from the publisher (via Netgalley) in exchange for my honest review.

Top Ten Tuesday: New-to-me authors of 2016

Whoa, it’s been months since I last did a Top Ten Tuesday!  I happened to scroll down while I was preparing a list of my top new (to me) authors of 2016 and saw that I’d flagged this topic as one I absolutely had to do.  What are the chances that the timing would be so perfect?

So, without further ado, here are ten authors (listed alphabetically) that I read for the first time in 2016 and will, without a doubt, continue to read in the future:

• Melissa Chambers.  I read Chambers’ The Summer Before Forever and was actually pretty surprised to find a young adult book that really delicately handled a romantic relationship between stepsiblings.  I’m really curious to see what she’ll come up with next.
• Rebekah Crane.  Of all my Kindle First picks, Crane’s The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland is one of my favorites.  A motley crew of teenagers helping each other overcome their problems at a picturesque summer camp?  That’s just my kind of story.
• Melanie Harlow.  BookBub often alerts me to free erotica, and nine times out of ten, it’s absolutely awful.  Harlow’s Frenched was a great exception to the rule, and I’ve already got an eye out for more of her work.

• Aaron Hartzler.  When What We Saw came out earlier last year, my Goodreads feed was flooded with positive reviews.  It took awhile for my library to get it, but it was absolutely worth the wait.  Now I am waiting patiently for more of Hartzler’s work to show up.
• Hazel Kelly.  Kindle Unlimited is a tricky thing.  There’s an awful lot of books available, and an awful lot of them aren’t very good.  But sometimes, you find a really good author whose books are well-written and don’t just feature the same plot over and over with different characters.  Kelly is one of those authors.
• Robin Roe.  I haven’t yet reviewed Roe’s A List of Cages, but it hit me hard.  This story of a young boy with an abusive uncle and his friend who struggles to help him ripped my heart out.  I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.
• Tiffany Truitt.  Seven Ways to Lose Your Heart still stands out as one of the cutest (and also sexiest) books I read this year.  I fell in love with the characters and world created by Truitt.
• Danika Stone.  If you’re looking for a good book about nerd culture, look no further than Stone’s All the Feels.  I have yet to read another book that so clearly captures the level of obsession I can get with a fictional universe.
• Siobhan Vivian. I read two of Vivian’s books this year and was pleased with both.  The one I particularly liked was her new release, The Last Boy and Girl in the World.  I am so excited to see what she releases next.
• Francesca Zappia. Saving the absolute best for last, Zappia’s Made You Up is one of my all-time favorite reads.  I absolutely adored the characters that she created, and I loved that we never quite knew whether what was happening was actually the truth.  I have so much respect for her as an author and I know she’s going to go on to do great things.

Which authors, if any, did you fall in love with this year?

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Okay, this book was just so cute. It was exactly what I needed after a steady stream of books that were just okay.

Kennedy and Annabel Lee used to be best friends, practically inseparable throughout their childhood. Always daring each other to be bigger and better and braver than everyone else. But then Annabel was in an awful car accident. Her brother died. She escaped, but with emotional and physical scars. Kennedy was nowhere to be found when she needed him the most.

It’s now a decade later. Annabel is taking care of her parents, her sick grandmother, and her two younger siblings. If she can manage to put herself first for once, she’ll leave for college in a few weeks. In the meantime, she and Kennedy have found themselves in the same photography class at the local community college. Years of separation have made things awkward, but Kennedy desperately wants to apologize for how he treated Annabel all those years ago.

I thought this book could go one of two ways. It could either be my favorite book of the year, or it could be trite, cheesy, and awful. I think it’s pretty obvious from my glowing five-star rating which one it ended up being.

I love books about childhood friends. I love books about people reconnecting. I love books that are cute and don’t have love triangles or cheating or unnecessary drama. And that’s the thing. This book is everything I love wrapped up in a cute story about childhood friends who reconnect on a road trip to a music festival.

It happens fast. But not too fast. Realistically fast, I think. Because it seemed to me that, even if she didn’t know it, Annabel was waiting all those years for Kennedy to come back to her. And Kennedy was waiting for his opportunity to apologize.

I loved their dares and their honesty and how open they were with each other. My laptop’s grammar check thinks that I mean “I loved their dates,” but no, I really do mean their dares. Because this book is based on Annabel and Kennedy’s deal that she’ll let him dare her to do seven things if he applies to seven writing internships. Because dares have always been their thing. And through those seven dares, they end up closer than ever. They make each other better.

I loved this book so much, and I can’t wait to see more from this author.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Final rating: ★★★★★