{"id":6392,"date":"2016-04-07T04:13:57","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T11:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=6392"},"modified":"2017-03-28T05:27:45","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T09:27:45","slug":"review-paper-princess-the-royals-1-by-erin-watt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=6392","title":{"rendered":"Review: Paper Princess (The Royals, #1) by Erin Watt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buy:\u00a0 Kindle Ebook<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0 Paperback<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Review<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Such a fantastic book! I loved it!!!<\/b><\/p>\n

Erin Watt is the pseudonym for the writing team that is Elle Kennedy and Jen Fredericks, and for their debut novel they have given us a wonderfully intense story that is emotional, exciting, heartbreaking, uplifting, fantastically angsty, funny, sexy and romantic. It\u2019s gloriously addictive, like book crack, and I was captivated from start to finish.<\/p>\n

Ella Harper is an incredibly strong, brave and resilient character that is the heart and soul of this book, and I absolutely love her! She is 17 years old, never knew her father and has lived a hard life with her single mother, moving from town to town and being exposed to all kinds of awful situations until her tragic mother\u2019s death. On her own, Ella worked three jobs, including dancing in a strip club, in order to pay for her mother\u2019s medical bills and get by, and still worked hard to continue her studies so that she can graduate high school, go to college and achieve her dream of a \u2018normal\u2019 life.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m only seventeen. Sometimes that feels too young to have lived the life I have. Sometimes I look around at my surroundings and think, <\/i>I don\u2019t belong here.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ella\u2019s life shifts completely when Callum Royal comes into her life. Claiming to be the best friend of the father she never met, he claims that he is her legal guardian and whisks her away to his home to live with him and his family. Immediately, Ella finds herself suddenly in the lap of luxury, surrounded by wealth and privilege and about to enter a world that is completely foreign to her.<\/p>\n

She wants nothing more than to fly under the radar, get through school and get gone, but that\u2019s not about to happen. Callum has five sons \u2013 all gorgeous, all privileged, and all completely antagonistic towards Ella. They are angry and resentful towards their father, suspicious of Ella and her motives, and they make it very clear that she is not welcome. Their behaviour continues to the exclusive high school that Ella is enrolled in, as the Royal boys rule the school, she is targeted as an outsider from the very beginning. And worst of all is second eldest son, Reed Royal.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should know whatever game you\u2019re playing, you can\u2019t win. Not against all of us. If you leave now, you won\u2019t be hurt. If you stay, we\u2019ll break you so bad that you\u2019ll be crawling away.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reed is asshole extraordinaire, but he is also the boy who gets Ella\u2019s blood pumping in a way she\u2019s never experienced before. But Ella doesn\u2019t let that fact stop her from standing up to him, and I was pumping my fist at her awesomeness!<\/p>\n

I meet Reed\u2019s hard eyes with defiant ones. \u201cDo your worst. You\u2019re an amateur compared to what I\u2019ve been through.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ella is incredible! She\u2019s had a hellish life, and dumped into a seemingly perfect lifestyle that is, in fact, a new kind of hell, but she keeps on pushing through. She doesn\u2019t apologise for who she is or feel ashamed of what she\u2019s gone through, she stands strong and fights back at the people determined to break her, and she had me cheering for her the whole way through.<\/p>\n

Somewhere along the line, I started thinking that if I just got through this bad experience, this bad day, that tomorrow I\u2019d have something better, brighter, newer.
\nI still believe that. I still believe that there\u2019s something good out there for me. I just have to keep going until my time comes. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See! Isn\u2019t she awesome!!!<\/p>\n

Ella\u2019s fight to stay true to herself and not let the people around her bring her down eventually leads to a shift in the boys\u2019 perception of her, and this is when the story really gets going. It\u2019s a slow evolution as the boys start to accept her, and the change in dynamic gives us a whole new story.<\/p>\n

The Royal boys, while initially being awful, actually turned out to be fantastic characters. Assholes, yeah, but they\u2019re all suffering in their own ways and as Ella gets to know them, she comes to understand them better, and the changed dynamic between them is fantastic!<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I like you. Didn\u2019t think I would but I do, and because I like you, I feel the need to warn you that we Royals are pretty fucked up. We\u2019re good in bed, but out of it? We\u2019re like a stage four hurricane. \u201c<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Middle brother was Easton totally stole my heart. He\u2019s such a great character, I\u2019m really looking forward to his story being explored a bit more, and his humour and his friendship with Ella added something really special to the book.<\/p>\n

\u201cNuh-uh, you\u2019re not getting off that easy. I want you to say it. Tell your big brother about your crush on your other big brother.\u201d
\n\u201cYou\u2019re imagining things. I\u2019m not crushing on Reed,\u201d I lie.
\n\u201cBull.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m not,\u201d I insist, but Easton sees right through me.
\n\u201cShit, Ella, I need a smoke every time you two are within five feet of each other.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then there\u2019s Reed. Oh holy hell, the boy is pure broody, angsty, bad boy sexiness and the chemistry between him and Ella sensational! Of course there\u2019s animosity, but from the very start there\u2019s something much deeper between them, a connection that deepens with each encounter, and the sexual tension gets more and more intense as the story goes on.<\/p>\n

I tug his head down to mine. \u201cI need you, Reed. Don\u2019t make me beg.\u201d
\nAnd just like that, he gives in. One hand comes up to tangle in my hair while the other pulls me roughly against him. \u201cYou don\u2019t ever have to ask again. I\u2019ll give you anything you want.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The story is told entirely from Ella\u2019s POV, and it\u2019s absolutely seamless! You wouldn\u2019t think this is a book written by two authors, they\u2019ve done an AMAZING job with it. There\u2019s a whole range of storylines intersecting throughout the story \u2013 school, family, relationship and personal issues for each of the characters, and the individual plotlines are brilliantly woven together to create a multifaceted story that sucked me in and had me feeling EVERYTHING! I don\u2019t want to give anything else away, you just need to read the book to experience it for yourself, but it\u2019s a wonderful journey that had my heart pounding as it all unfolded.<\/p>\n

It all ends on a hideous cliffy that made me literally scream out loud \u2018WTF IS GOING ON?!?!?!\u2019. But even if it didn\u2019t end like it did, I\u2019d still be desperate for more. I\u2019m so entranced by the story, I can\u2019t wait to continue on. Thank God July isn\u2019t too far away.<\/p>\n

5 stars!<\/p>\n

(Just a warning too, that though the characters are high-school age, this is definitely not a YA read. It\u2019s got explicit language and sexual content, and reads more like an NA book, just with younger characters).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Royals series<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"paper \u00a0\"\"\u00a0 \"twisted-palace\" \u00a0\"\" \u00a0\"\"\u00a0\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

Paper Princess (#1)<\/strong> (Ella & Reed)
\n<\/strong>Review<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Buy:\u00a0 Kindle Ebook<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0 Paperback<\/a><\/p>\n

Broken Prince (#2) <\/strong>(Ella & Reed)
\n<\/strong>Review<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0 Kindle Ebook <\/a> |\u00a0 Paperback<\/a><\/p>\n

Twisted Palace (#3) <\/strong>(Ella & Reed)
\n<\/strong>Review<\/a>
\nBuy: Kindle Ebook<\/a> |\u00a0Paperback<\/a><\/p>\n

Tarnished Crown (#3.5)<\/strong> (Gideon & Savannah)
\nReview<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0 Kindle Ebook<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Fallen Heir (#4)<\/strong> (Easton & Hartley)
\nReview<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0 Kindle Ebook<\/a><\/p>\n

Cracked Kingdom (#5)<\/strong> (Easton & Hartley)
\nReview<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0 Kindle Ebook<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0 Paperback<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buy:\u00a0 Kindle Ebook\u00a0 |\u00a0 Paperback Review Such a fantastic book! I loved it!!! Erin Watt is the pseudonym for the writing team that is Elle Kennedy and Jen Fredericks, and for their debut novel they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","yasr_overall_rating":4.9000000000000003552713678800500929355621337890625,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"Product","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[297,52,86,50,49,13,9,29],"tags":[302,48,303],"class_list":["post-6392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-angsty","category-drama","category-enemies-to-lovers","category-favourite","category-feeeeeeels","category-new-adult","category-romance","category-steamy","tag-erin-watt","tag-review","tag-royals"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Paper-Princess.jpg?fit=150%2C228&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gaNL-1F6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}