We finally get to the ball and we finally get a chapter from Samantha’s POV. Sam is headed into the ball late, bemoaning in her head the whole time about being ‘the spare,’ which I really have no sympathy for? You’re a wealthy teenager with unlimited access and money and no responsibilities.

Okay, okay, if we come at it from the mindset the book wants us to have, that can still be something. But despite this being Sam’s first POV, Nina’s chapter was mostly about her as well and we’ve yet to see why we should care? She’s the second born, fine, but that doesn’t mean she has no power or opportunities unless the only thing she wants out of life is to be Queen. So…why does she care that she’s the spare? We don’t know. Is she…just called that so often that she hates it b/c repetition? Which seems rather unlikely to me; it honestly sounds more like someone read ‘hear and spare’ in a duke romance at one point and just fucking ran with it.

Oh my god. Oh my god. The Louisiana purchase was the result of A CARD GAME between the kings of America and France. Because…what, we have to ignore all wars in this version of history and not just the revolutionary ones? France was bankrupt from revolts in their colonies prior to the purchase, but hey, we can’t think about that because then it would infringe upon our wealth porn. I guess.

Not mentioned in this delightful and quaint story about two kings trading vast swaths of land in a card game is the fact that the majority of the Louisiana Purchase wasn’t controlled by France at all, but by the Native peoples already there. The US bought the “right” to go in and conquer said territory. Bets on if Native Americans come up at all in this book?

So we get descriptions of Sam’s outfit as risqué (relative to the royal formality, at least) and her mom appears to be disapproving in a way that really feels tame. This is standard American Rich People, not the formal and rigid structure of European monarchies. Which, if you want to say things are different because America, because it’s a younger monarchy, okay. But in that case…the point of having a monarchy is really just so Sam can whine about the word ‘spare’?

Samantha whines in her head about how hard it is to be a woman compared to her brother, who gets all sorts of breaks from the media when he does the same things. Like shopping and underage drinking. “Wah, I can’t spend massive amounts of other people’s money without being called out for it and this is unfair because SOMEONE ELSE gets even more leeway than I do.”

Like, yeah it’s sexist and yeah it sucks, but maybe I don’t care about you so shut up.

Sam continues to tell us how hard her life is because her sister is perfect and her parents are disappointed in her, so she just forcefully goes forward with her disappointing behavior and heads for the alcohol. There she meets some (relative to the setting) Bad Boy named Theodore. Aka Teddy.

(Side note: How dare you drag my very favorite name Theo into this.)

Teddy’s father was the Duke of Boston: one of the thirteen original dukedoms

…what about the rest of Massachusetts?

Somehow Teddy’s name is because his younger sister thought he looked like a teddy bear, and not because Teddy is already a common nickname for Theodore? I’m just endlessly confused when books decide to explain things that don’t need it.

Teddy and Sam trade banal small talk before hiding in a closet to make out. Erm, okay?

So, yeah, wow, I have so much negative sympathy for this girl, who so far just seems to resent that her older sister is better than her and literally that is her only note. I mean, I get it, my sister is annoyingly perfect, too. (She even writes better than me and HOW DARE, THAT WAS MY THING, ahem, anyway.) But Sam just will not give me a reason to care about that. She, as far as I can tell, has no goals or interests or ambitions beyond ‘I’m jealous so I’m going to cause trouble.’ And, wow, such character. So developed.

Get this chick a therapist and some charity board to sit on or something.

Next chapter we’re back with Beatrice. Beatrice is getting ready for the formal knighting ceremony and also bemoaning the weight of responsibilities. Then her personal guard comes in, named Connor, and is obviously her forbidden love interest.

Also, the Revere guard IS named for Paul Revere and was established in 1812. So, still way ahead of the poem in the 1860s.

There is a long, long, long section backtracking to the start of their princess/bodyguard relationship and OMG BOOK WHY CAN YOU NOT MANAGE TO STAY IN THE PRESENT. None of this is actually important; we can figure out their relationship within the actual story. Hell, she called him by his first name and I pegged it just off that, THIS ISN’T HARD. We catch up to the present and they talk, very very briefly, about her parents wanting her to get married. Seeing that expanded upon would be more interesting than whatever small talk they made last year, but nope. That was really just a whole chapter of Beatrice sitting and moping and having mild shipper moments in her dressing room.