Rivals (American Royals #3)
By: Katherine McGee
Published Year: 2022
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Pages: 400
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Beatrice is queen, and for the American royal family, everything is about to change.
Relationships will be tested.
Princess Samantha is in love with Lord Marshall Davis—but the more serious they get, the more complicated things become. Is Sam destined to repeat her string of broken relationships…and this time will the broken heart be her own?
Strangers will become friends.
Beatrice is representing America at the greatest convocation of kings and queens in the world. When she meets a glamorous foreign princess, she gets drawn into the inner circle…but at what cost?
And rivals will become allies.
Nina and Daphne have spent years competing for Prince Jefferson. Now they have something in common: they both want to take down manipulative Lady Gabriella Madison. Can these enemies join forces, or will old rivalries stand in the way?
First Impressions
I was so excited to find out that there was going to be a third book after the way the second one ended. I like the cover and think it’s interesting that it’s the first one to have two people on the cover instead of one.
What I thought
This book gave me closure on some parts but opened up new holes in others. Since this is a sequel, there will be spoilers from the previous books.
Beatrice is hosting the League of Kings, her first big event as Queen. Samantha and Marshall are officially dating and out in the public. Daphne is back with Jefferson and Nina is back focusing on college.
I enjoyed this book for the most part but it did start to feel repetitive after a while. In addition to that, I had an issue with the message it seemed to be sending at the end which is that powerful women can never be friends with other powerful women. The only female friendship we see is Sam and Nina. Every other friendship is based off of lying and manipulation and all of the characters end up alone and decide that if they want to get what they want then they can’t afford to have female friends.
I think my biggest issue is I was enjoying this book a lot until the end. I liked the development with Daphne and Nina as well as Beatrice and the Queen Regent of France, Louise. But I hated how they ended up playing out and it made me feel a little like the whole book was for nothing. So much of what happened in the middle could have never happened and the end could’ve ended up exactly the same.
This book just seemed to be missing a little of the magic from the first two and didn’t feel like anything special.
When I first finished this book, I felt like it was a solid 3.5 and then was going to round up to a 4, but now it feels more like I need to round down. I like the characters, but the story in this one was not my favorite. A few things happened at the end that just made me mad. Obviously, I’m still going to read the next one, but it wasn’t my favorite in the series.