I breezed through American Royals because I found it so darn good. How good? Read my review here. So I just dived into Majesty hoping for the same excellence of story.

If you haven’t read American Royals, I recommend you do so because there’s so much backstory and it’s explained in the most basic way in Majesty. The major players are:

Beatrice: I could really relate to Beatrice in American Royals, but her character seemed to go astray in Majesty. She’s been trained her whole life to be the Queen, yet when the time comes, she says and does some things that are entirely un-queen like. I was not rooting for her and Connor in American Royals because I’m a realist like her father was, and was happy to see him out of the picture in Majesty (for the most part) and her concentrating on seeing if she could make a life with Teddy, the son of the Duke of Boston. I was happy to see their relationship grow by doing normal things, things that Beatrice was not used to doing, like going through a drive-through at McDonald’s. I didn’t like Teddy much in American Royals, but found him very appealing in Majesty, sort of like how Beatrice felt.

Samantha: I don’t know what I was expecting from wild child rebel Samantha, but she did not disappoint in that department in Majesty. I’m glad she moved on from Teddy, after all, she just randomly made out with him in a closet at the palace right after meeting him. She’s always been casual about her relationships. So to see her stage a romance just like Beatrice did, and actually fall for Marshall, the grandson of the Duke of Orange, made sense.

Daphne: As duplicitous, shallow, hypocritical and back stabbing as in the first book. And I waited two whole books for her to find her comeuppance only to be sadly disappointed. She’s never revealed to be the beeatch she really is, and the ending of the book convinced me there had to be a third book in the offing, but according to the author, there’s only a slim chance of that.

Nina: Nina is still Samantha’s best friend, but I felt like she really didn’t belong in this story at all. Besides chopping her hair off, there’s no real character growth in this book. She was Samantha’s connection to the outside world, the one who didn’t fall for the trappings of royalty, the one who didn’t put up with B.S. In this book she’s a marshmallow. She makes the same mistakes with Ethan that she did with Jefferson.

Ethan: Jefferson’s best friend is just as conniving and smart as Daphne, as we found out at the end of American Royals, and he’s caught up in a scheme with Daphne in Majesty, but gets in over his head. Good. He deserves it.

Jefferson: I’m not even sure why Jefferson is in this book, other than to have Daphne chase him as usual. He went through a lot to be with a normal girl, Nina, and he just chucks it away quite easily, probably because he’s never had to work for anything in his life. His complete change of heart at the end of the book makes the reader go “Whaaaaaa?”

I’m not sure, based on the ending of Majesty, why this book was planned as part of a duology and not a trilogy. If it’s to show that Beatrice is a strong 21st Century woman who doesn’t need a man to rule, fine, that’s been accomplished. If it is to show that Samantha has grown up enough to start taking her job as heir more seriously, check that box off. But this is a YA romance novel. It’s all about the boy/girl, man/woman relationships. To have the book just end without a satisfactory conclusion just begs for a third book. I hope McGee and the publishers listen to the fans when we say that we want closure!

For more reviews, visit www.bargain-sleuth.com

Never miss a post! Subscribe to our email list below.

Join our Facebook page Bargain Sleuth Book Reviews or join our book group here.

We are also on Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr. Check us out!

This post contains affiliate links.