Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: Acts of Treason
SERIES: The Line of Succession #2
AUTHOR: Harry F. Rey
PUBLISHER: Deep Desires Press
LENGTH: 37, 430 words
RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2019
BLURB:
Four months have passed since the birthday party where Princess Katyn came into James’ life and gave the country hope of a royal wedding. Andrew is now a journalist, but he’s still up to his old tricks, spinning stories of the impending engagement of James and Katyn. Fortunately, the public are lapping up the fairytale royal romance. In reality, James and Andrew’s relationship is struggling to survive the weight of their separation, always one bad headline away from disaster.
The expected engagement has cornered James, and he’s acting out in ever more dangerous ways. The Queen has made it crystal clear she wants a wedding and an heir, and will stop at nothing to achieve it…not even murder.
As Princess Alexandra ramps up her feminist plan to forever shift the line of succession, she tasks her husband Faisal with roping in Andrew to her schemes by promising him a normal life with James. Only, it comes with a high price…treason.
Meanwhile, Lizzie pursues her own, far deadlier agenda. She’s finished holding onto secrets, and these particular secrets are the kind which, if they ever got out, could blow the entire line of succession wide open.
REVIEW:
I’ve been a big fan of this series so far, and for the past few months, I’ve been recommending it to everyone. It’s fast, soapy, dramatic, and sexy—everything you need in your new guilty pleasure read. Though there aren’t as many big plot twists in this story as there were in the amazing first book, Rey is still bringing the drama with all these young, beautiful characters who live to screw and screw each other over. And if they’re all wearing crowns, that’s even better!
This book starts four months after the events of Line of Succession. Crown Prince James is wading miserably through a sham engagement to Katyn, Princess of Sweden, while trying to take some agency over his sex life after his longtime secret boyfriend and PR rep, Andrew, distanced himself from the royal family. Andrew thinks he’s controlling the narrative at his new job as a journalist, but instead, he’s the one being controlled after a story about him and James comes out through an unlikely source. I don’t want to spoil this book or the first one, so I’ll just say that there’s tons of intrigue, several huge betrayals, and a lot of second-guessing from most of the characters. You can’t trust anyone.
Much like in the first book, you won’t get a happy ending, but it’s fitting. I’m not even sure happy endings are in the cards for these characters, no matter how many books we get. It’s a very Games of Thrones-esque world where it will probably all end in toppling empires and full graveyards. However, I feel like these characters will inspire weird loyalty in readers—I’m definitely stanning hard for Alexandra, the scorned twin sister of James who only wants what is coming to her. She’s cutthroat and vicious, but in this world, you need to be.
It’s hard to top the first book in terms of bombshell-droppage, so there was a little less excitement in reading this book. The twists and turns just weren’t as jaw-dropping, though I did gasp at a few parts involving ruthless Queens and cunning husbands. The storytelling is a little more complex and takes a few bold risks that pay off. In my opinion, any contemporary fiction that concocts a plot about a troop of IRA secret agents infiltrating the British monarchy is absolutely worth a read!
If you enjoyed the first book, you’ll definitely get your fix with this one. It’s pretty dense, though, so just page through The Line of Succession as a refresher before diving in for another sinful guilty pleasure read!
RATING: 
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