Royal Blood
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By Aimée Carter
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""Royal Blood is The Princess Diaries meets What A Girl Wants meets Gossip Girl."" Culturefly
""An addictively fun one-sitting read for 14+ fans of Karen McManus."" THE GUARDIAN
Kicked out of her American boarding school, Evan is sent to live with her estranged father, the King of England. Her existence as his illegitimate daughter is top secret – until someone leaks it to the press. Suddenly she’s the focus of a thousand lurid headlines, plus the hatred of her stepmother the Queen and half-sister Princess Maisie.
Then the royal scandal intensifies… After Evan is seen disappearing with a journalist’s son at a party, he is found dead and she becomes the primary suspect in a murder investigation. Did ""the Killer Princess"" really do it? It seems that only the Queen’s gorgeous nephew Kit will help Evan clear her name. But can she really trust anyone at the palace?Totally addictive and packed full of glamour, scandal and romance, Royal Blood is The Princess Diaries with murder, for fans of One Of Us Is Lying, Red, White And Royal Blue and The King Is Dead.
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This young adult novel is set in an alternate Britain where Edward VIII did not abdicate. Instead, he gave up Wallis Simpson, married someone deemed more appropriately, had a son and his line continued. Now, in the present day, his great-grandson is King Alexander II with soon-to-be-eighteen-years-old Princess Mary as his heir.
But Mary is not his only child. Evangeline, known as Evan, is exactly the same age as her half-sister, the result of a love affair between the King and an American.
When she is kicked out of her ninth boarding school - the fire was an accident, really - she's brought to London to meet her father for the first time in her life. But her arrival isn't popular in many quarters of the palace. Queen Helene and Princess Mary are particularly scathing about the royal bastard and the Queen Mother goes off early to Balmoral so that she doesn't have to share a palace with her. Then her existence is leaked to the tabloid press and overnight she becomes the newest - and most hated - member of the royal family.
The scandal only deepens when, shortly afterwards, she becomes the last person to see the handsome son of a wealthy press baron alive. Evan finds herself the prime suspect in the murder investigation and is determined to clear her name, but can she trust anyone at the palace?
Superficially, this is quite glossy and frothy: lots of scandal, gorgeous clothes, visits to private nightclubs and Ascot. But there's actually a number of gritter topics just underneath the surface. Evan's family situation is tough: not only has she never met her father, but she hasn't seen her mother in eleven years, and that's before she has to deal with a paternal grandmother who informs her that she's a mistake that 'should have been corrected in the womb' and assorted other bitchy royal relatives. For all the wealth and glamour surrounding her, she's hurt, lonely and vulnerable. In addition, there's a fairly detailed examination of what it might be like to be the subject of a tabloid feeding frenzy, date rape, and schizophrenia, all of which are dealt with sympathetically. There are number of interesting games of what if? being played.
