When she married Prince William back in 2011, Kate Middleton didn’t just capture the heart of a future king—she also ensnared the imaginations of women worldwide. Will and Kate’s royal romance has been meticulously documented by the press and even been the subject of a Lifetime movie. Now it serves as the inspiration for the first adult novel by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, the duo behind the snarky celebrity-fashion blog, Go Fug Yourself, and authors of two young adult novels (Messy and Spoiled).
In The Royal We, Cocks and Morgan blend fact and fiction to put their own spin on the “unlikely princess” motif: Rebecca Porter isn’t just a brash, carefree commoner, she’s an American to boot! But when a semester abroad at Oxford lands her down the hall from Prince Nicholas, heir to the British throne, an unlikely friendship develops and the sparks soon fly.
It’s a tricky business basing a novel on a pairing whose romantic ups and downs are already so well known, but Cocks and Morgan have managed to do so with charm and wit. Bex and Nick’s relationship does sometimes too closely mirror that of their real-world counterparts; however there are enough creative twists thrown in to keep things fresh. In particular, the pragmatism is unexpected—The Royal We pulls back the veil on the fantasy of what it really means for a regular person to be part of the royal family, and it doesn’t skim over the sacrifice required to reach a happy ending. Readers should prepare to lose their hearts to The Royal We, a loving satire that is scandalously funny and wonderfully romantic.
This article was originally published in the April 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.
