You had to hand it to the Washingtons, Daphne thought, from where she sat in the audience of the knighthood ceremony. They really knew how to do pomp and circumstance.

Daphne then proceeds to describe almost nothing, and what is described is honestly kind of thin and dull. Like, imagine your most basic ass low-budget fantasy TV show where a king has to knight someone. It’s that.

Sheesh, at least describe the dresses or something.

Also, I’m still mad that these benighted people are called Lord and Lady instead of Sir and Dame. There’s even mention that they’re giving out patents of nobility, which means they’re enobling dozens (?) of people every year to a hereditary rank and….just…are there any commoners left after centuries of this? They could all be life peers instead of heredity peers, but then why the patents???? And the ceremony clearly describes knighting someone which just ARGH.

The ceremony ends and Daphne walks around the party, greeting people and just soaking in the feeling of power. Which. M’kay. No one’s really done anything yet, but if you say so. There’s a mention of Himari, Daphne’s friend who is in the hospital ever since That Infamous Graduation Night. OoooOOoo mysterious, I guess.

Daphne dances with Jeff, who mind of mumbles through an apology about how he dumped her and then runs off mid-song. A new character, Ethan, takes up the dancing and he and Daphne talk in vague terms about something they ‘did’ on ‘that night’ and heavens just TELL ME ALREADY. Unless someone is trying to investigate this mystery, it’s so pointless to keep it hidden like this. We won’t be figuring it out or collecting clues or anything, we just have to wait until the text tells us, so it winds up being cheap bait to keep us invested. And if you need cheap bait, your story isn’t very good to start with.

This ball is interminable, can someone please just…IDK, get shot or start a fistfight or sneak off to a corner to plot a coup or SOMETHING.

AT LEAST TELL ME WHAT THE DRESSES LOOK LIKE, THAT’S SUPPOSED TO BE THE APPEAL OF WEALTH PORN.

Back with Nina, who is as bored of this party as I am.

It reminded Nina of the soap operas that Julie used to love, where you could miss weeks at a time and then seamlessly pick the story back up. Because despite the whirl of action that seeme4d to affect the characters, nothing much had actually happened.

Fairly accurate, except for the ‘whirl of action’ part.

Nina decides to go outside for a break and some fresh air, and Jeff follows her. We get confirmation that she is his affair partner from That Night. Apparently whatever they were doing naked in bed wasn’t sex, because Nina is the Final Girl and has to be kept pure and good enough for this prince that…

Okay so the text keeps going on and on about how popular he is, but we haven’t even gotten a physical description and also he doesn’t do anything? We’re told he’s cute, okay. So far all he’s done is stand around, cheat on his girlfriend, fail to text this other girl for six months, and…that’s it. Maybe it’s just too many characters going on and the author is adept enough to properly develop them all in tandem, or maybe the fact that he’s Male, Cute, and Prince is supposed to be enough for us to root for him?

Yeesh, and after that whole “wah, double standards” speech from Sam yesterday.

Himari apparently fell down some stairs. I’m sure we’ll find out later she was pushed. Probably by Daphne and Ethan.

Jeff says he didn’t text or call her for six months because he was ‘confused’ and somehow that works on Nina so she stays with him to watch fireworks. And then, GUESS WHAT? IT’S FLASHBACK TIME. It’s…just about how she made out with Jeff at the party That Night, which we already knew, so what is the point?

We are almost 20% into this book and nothing is happening. Not even the Romance Novel version of things happening, because we’re so enmeshed useless flashbacks to set up things that don’t need an entire chapter to set up. You are allowed to just establish a dymanic between two characters and then MOVE FORWARD.

Jeff tries to kiss her, she slaps him and says “sorry isn’t good enough” which I’m all on board with. But then he asks if they can start over and she’s all eh-maybe. Which, I guess, is technically a fraction of an inch forward from where we were before.

Y’all, look, I love romance books. I really do. But the good ones usually have two plots going. There’s the romance plot and the framing plot. “Oh no, we have to work together on this project to save our company but also we hate each other and are hot, what will happen???” For it to be romance genre, the romance part has to drive or change some part of the other plot, so the fact that our two hapless coworkers fall into bed together has to affect the project they’re working on, or some comic miscommunication with their bantering is why they get partnered up together. Just, the two have to affect each other, or else it’s just a book with a romantic subplot.

Doing a romance with ONLY a romance plot is really hard because if you aren’t just right with it IT’S BORING AS FUCK.

American Royals seems to think that just “royals exist” is enough of a framing plot to carry the romance. It’s not. “Royals exist and anti-monarchists are trying to abolish it and Beatrice falling for her guard gives them ammo (somehow) and in the end she decides lets put it to a vote and the country votes out the monarchy and Bea goes and marries Connor happily ever after” that works. “Royals exist and Daphne wants to be queen so bad that she kind of bumbles through some politics and messes up some ongoing foreign deals at a crucial time and she, Nina, and Jeff have to fix it,” that works.

“Royals exist and have sex drives” by itself is the fucking worst. The only thing interesting about this book is how much if fucks up history.