The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Title: The Royal We

Author: Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan 

Genre: YA Romance

Similar to the movie "The Prince & Me", the main character meets the Prince of England in college. Although the girl is American, she is studying abroad in England, and the Prince has a collection of close friends that provide both social outlets and protection for him while there, and the American is quickly a part of this crowd. Follow the drama as a romance that doesn't tick any of the upper class boxes that the Royal family looks for goes public, and see if it is able to survive!

- Katrina 

Check out The Royal We by Heather Cocks!

Queen's Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle

The Queen’s Gambit is a chess opening in which a pawn is temporarily sacrificed to give the player a strong center presence. In The Queen's Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle, the life of Elizabeth Parr, sixth wife of Henry VIII, becomes a chess game after her marriage. In order to keep her position and her head, she must plan carefully, stay at least one move ahead of her enemies, and arrange her allies carefully around her. To succeed at this game, she needs the loyalty of her maid-servant, Dot, illiterate and lowly-born, who understands the importance of keeping the Queen’s secrets, even at great danger to herself.

Katherine Parr was thirty, twice-widowed and childless, when her modesty and common sense caught the eye of King Henry VIII. His proposal of marriage could not be refused.  Katherine was forced to put aside self-interest to marry a husband who was by this time elderly, sick, bad-tempered and dangerous. Henry was a man who could suddenly turn on those close to him and order anyone, even his queen, banished, arrested or executed. Katherine endured some close calls, but with the help of servants and friends and her own intuition about the King’s moods, she was able to outwit her enemies and outlive the king. In this book her story is told from two points of view, Katherine’s and Dot’s.  Each was a woman who rose above her station. Katherine, of aristocratic but not royal blood, became Queen of England. Dot, the uneducated daughter of a thatcher, became the Queen’s most trusted retainer. Together they navigated the chess board of the English Court, the gossip, the intrigues, the back-biting, the maneuvering for favor.

After Henry’s death, both Katherine and Dot married for love. Dot created a happy home and family, but Katherine’s fourth husband, Thomas Seymour, proved to be a social-climbing philanderer. Neither of Katherine’s positions, Queen and Dowager Queen, could provide happiness or safety. After careful strategizing in Henry’s Court kept her alive, she died at age thirty-six, as so many sixteenth century women did, in childbirth.

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