The Royals Series by Louise Bay is essentially stories of the King family and those connected to them. The series starts with Max King and his love interest, Harper. Book 2 is Harper's best friend Grace and her love interest, Sam. Book 3 is Max's next youngest sister Scarlett and her love interest, Ryder. Book 4 is Max and Scarlett's younger sister, Violet, and her love interest Alexander. Book 5 is Ryder's sister, Darcy, and her love interest, Logan.
Since I flew through these books, one after the other, I figured I would just review the series as a whole. These books are pretty much read, rinse, repeat, but each story is pretty interesting and they are all very steamy. The characters are all pretty complex, with differing issues and interesting development. I would say that these are books I enjoyed, but didn't love and wouldn't read again. Overall, the BIGGEST problem I had with them was the lack of detail in the overall story line and how each story changed the background of the world dynamics to fit each new book. For example, in Max and Harper's book, Scarlett seems to be a dating machine (Harper meets her for the first time as she is headed out on a date) and in her book, we learn that she was two years divorced from her high school sweetheart. The dating machine is Violet. I'm thinking that Ms. Bay got the name wrong, because later in Max's book, we are told Scarlett doesn't really date. Also in the age area, Darcy is said to be Ryder's older sister. This comes up because Ryder believes Darcy should inherit because she is the oldest, but English titled society is still very old fashioned. But in Darcy's book, she is 28 and Ryder's younger sister. There was also an issue with ages. Time passed between each book, nothing overlapped. I don't recall precise ages of everyone, but I do know Harper was 25 in her book and I believe Max was 32. I got the impression that Scarlett and Violet were not significantly younger, so maybe 25ish at the youngest. Scarlett was for sure out of college, because she had already been working at an investment bank for a while. In Scarlett's book, we know she has been divorced for two years and that she was married for three. I believe she and her ex-husband were married at 19, so that would have made her 24 in her book, but Max and Harper were already married and had two kids. So, it can't be a timeline issue with Scarlett from the previous book and concerns about when she could have been married and divorced. Violet's timeline has issues as well because she has a history with a college boyfriend that was two years in her past and her story begins at least two years after Scarlett's, because Scarlett and Ryder have two children as well. By the time we get to Darcy's book, she should be nearly 35 (which she hinted at wanting to adopt a child before she turned 35 in Violet's book and it didn't come up again after that brief mention).
This type of stuff REALLY bothers me. There is no excuse for these kinds of mistakes and people who like series' like to follow the storyline with reasonable continuity. The stories themselves were enjoyable, and since they could be read as standalones, I tried to ignore the incongruous nature of the larger story arc. But it was very difficult at times when fundamental parts of the story were changed from book to book.
Overall, the books were enjoyable, but I would only recommend them to someone who wouldn't be hung up by the discrepancies.
No comments:
Post a Comment