Review: Royal Holiday

Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Note: Goodreads forced me to pick it up and so did her fans. So originally it wasn't my brilliant idea to pick this up.. Also my first 50 year olds' romance, so good job on me! Good ideas hehe..

But not bad ones.

So here we go..

The cover -Hardback (the one I received), a pretty cute and simple cover, though very adorable. So I loved it at first glance, couldn't control myself to keep trailing my fingers around the title itself..hehe, guilty. So a star for that.

The summary, plotline itself: Well the summary was interesting. Considering it was a spin off The Wedding Party (Vivian's daughter Maddie's story), it should have been hard to read as I had missed a story for one, and getting introduced to the other characters that were related or knew the main character well. But luckily it wasn't hard to get into the story and feeling connected all the same. But of course it's now got me wanting to read the other books in the order hehe, so addicted a bit, gotta admit. But the plotline is interesting: Vivian goes to England with her stylist daughter who's helping the duchess with her clothes, she ends up meeting Malcolm and loving England overall. Loved it enough to give it a star yay!

It's quite interesting. Another interesting fact linked to this book would be the fact that originally the author had volunteered to write a book where in an alternate universe, Meghan Markle's mother would be a single parent visiting England for the first time (without a husband, but then again who wants a husband and father like Meghan Markle's?) so sounding close to fanfiction in a way but a very interesting plot to write. This was my main motivation throughout, that perhaps if things were different Doris Ragland would have had a different future for herself after her daughter had settled...(not a bad thought)..

The romance: Slow burn as they usually are, in short, snappy, sweet romances. But there's not a lot of tension, or something to swoon at, felt a bit flat at times. But maybe I've been too used to reading 20-30 year olds' romances, that could be one reason..But still flat overall.

Now the reason why I took out two stars..

The personalities: Sometimes Vivian felt like a teenager, or a woman in her 30s. I can't pinpoint exactly what made her disliked, to me at least, but the way she talked and acted were some of the reasons why I disliked her. Malcolm was not bad to read but even he with his decisions sometimes forgot to depend on others, and acted a bit too nice, sigh..He's supposed to be firm, a bit moody I suppose considering he's 1. British. 2. In his 50s. 3. A royal secretary. So I really didn't enjoy their personalities much.

I hope for Maddie, Theo, Alex to be different than these characters, seriously...

The issues: There are not enough issues in this book. For 1. They're both different, personality wise. They never talk about this. 2. They have different beliefs. They never mention how he's british and he has certain beliefs, and how she's american, she might never get used to it...they don't talk. 3. They're both too old to keep travelling back and forth, they don't think how they'll manage in the future.

THEY NEVER COMMUNICATE! The author completely overlooks these issues like they're nothing and just moves on.

Sigh..

And they're mostly happy. Like aren't there supposed to be more issues? Considering the fact that they're so different and come from two different worlds?

I fail to understand how this author even managed to think falling in love even when you're miles apart with no issue is so DARN EASY. FAIL TO COMPREHEND THIS!..

But overall it's not too terrible to read, just as long as you're prepared to go along with characters who act much younger, almost no issues shown (making this as an unrealistic read), and the romance downplayed a hell lot.

But regardless, I'll still pick this author's other novels up as they're quite popular and well known, so hopefully they'll be better.

Until the next read,

-J.B

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