My Week in Book Review: The Heir Affair

The Heir Affair by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

After a scandalous secret turns their fairy-tale wedding into a nightmare, Rebecca "Bex" Porter and her husband Prince Nicholas are in self-imposed exile. The public is angry. The Queen is even angrier. And the press is salivating. Cutting themselves off from friends and family, and escaping the world's judgmental eyes, feels like the best way to protect their fragile, all-consuming romance. But when a crisis forces the new Duke and Duchess back to London, the Band-Aid they'd placed over their problems starts to peel at the edges. Now, as old family secrets and new ones threaten to derail her new royal life, Bex has to face the emotional wreckage she and Nick left behind: with the Queen, with the world, and with Nick's brother Freddie, whose sins may not be so easily forgotten—nor forgiven.

ALERT! There will be spoilers.

WOW. What can I say? I’ve been waiting in line on Overdrive to read this since July, and it didn’t disappoint. This is the much-anticipated sequel to The Royal We, a story of an intercontinental romance featuring an alternate UK royal family and a tomboy from America. In that story, Prince Nicholas (Nick) and Rebecca (Bex) Porter made it through heartache, scandal, and more to end up together. I was on cloud 9 as I read the happy ending, but I also felt like you do when you’re not paying attention and run into a wall—like wait! I wasn’t ready for that! Is that the end? I enjoyed the read, but dang, there was so much more I wanted to know about what would have happened afterward . . . and then I found out there was a sequel and if I were a cartoon character, the heart eyes would have been halfway across the room.

If the first book took on what it means to give up everything you’ve ever known about your life to be with the person you love, then the second book tackles what it looks like when the wedding bells stop ringing and real life hits the fan. In the first book, Bex gave up being normal to become royal, and in the second book, she has to deal with the consequences.

So, diving in. I feel like this book is structured around several episodes of different traumas. During the royal wedding, Clive’s story about Freddie kissing Bex breaks, and Nick and Bex leave the church to resounding boos and immediately run away to hide under wigs and aliases in Scotland. They’re forced back into the public eye when Queen Eleanor lures them out of hiding with a fake heart attack (sneaky but well played). For the first part of the book, Bex tries to find her place amongst the royals, who pointedly try to freeze her out. Meanwhile, she tries to play peacemaker between Nick and Freddie, whose need to outdo each other in the public service arena seems to hide deeper issues. Bex thinks she’s finally getting a toe in the door of both issues—until Thanksgiving dinner turns into a huge fight between Freddie and Nick, culminating in Nick revealing that he’s struggling with the Bex/Freddie kiss situation way more than he had let on. Freddie walks out and eventually Nick does too, leaving Bex alone then and for the next few months as he avoids her. Things get even worse when Queen Eleanor has a stroke and goes into a coma while “Prince Dick” takes temporary command of the nation. Yup, things are pretty dang low. I love how this story can have everything go wrong, but it’s still a delight to read. Bex is frustrated, drained, discouraged, but she’s never a drag. To continue the theme of momentous holidays, on New Year’s Eve, Nick comes back to Bex, ready to make things work with her. Oh, also, the Queen wakes up.

Things take a turn for the better for the next while—Nick and Bex are reconciled with each other (if not Nick with Freddie), and they take a royal tour that goes swimmingly (well, minus the accidental boob photos). The Queen enlists Bex to help her “have fun” now that she’s cheated death and just doesn’t care anymore about being proper (only kind of true). Freddie goes all special forces for a while to get away and find himself, and when he gets back, he and Nick start rebuilding their relationship. There are a lot of sweet moments in this section, and seeing the Queen of England cheer for the Cubs in the World Series—it’s something definitely worth reading.

But things can’t go well forever. Bex’s twin, Lacey, gets pregnant, which is all well and good until Bex unexpectedly gets pregnant too—and then miscarriages. This launches the royal couple into a long battle with infertility. They try diet. They try IVF. They try everything. The conclusion is Bex’s uterus is fine, but Nick’s sperm isn’t doing the trick. Finally, the Queen suggests a different option—a sperm donor. To keep the family resemblance and to keep the blood royal, there is one good option: Freddie.

Oh man. Nick and Bex respond about how you’d expect—no way, super awkward after what’s happened, don’t want to break the fragile relationship the brothers are rebuilding. But what else to do? This leads to an interesting conversation between Bex and her mom. Bex is worried that if they use Freddie as a donor, it will ruin her and Nick’s relationship with him because Freddie won’t be able to be around the child who is the genetic product of him and the woman he used to love (still loves? I.e. Bex). She says that she loves Nick and wants to be with him, but she doesn’t want to lose her friendship with Freddie. Her mom then makes the astute point that Bex can’t have it all. Nick’s had to forgive Freddie, Freddie’s had to rebuild his trust with his brother and also get over Bex, but Bex has tried to keep both her romantic relationship with her husband as well as her platonic relationship with his brother, and it’s just not going to work. Things can’t ever be the same as they were before Freddie kissed Bex, but they can be good in a different way, and if Bex wants Freddie to be able to move on, she’s got to let him go. She also needs to trust that she and Nick’s relationship can handle them having a child using Freddie’s sperm without it launching them back into the dark place they used to be. In the end, they do use Freddie, Bex gets pregnant with twins who come at the end of the novel, and all is well on the fertility front.

However, they do lose Freddie, at least in a sense. He gets engaged to and marries the Princess of the Netherlands, Daphne, who’s showed up periodically through the book to win your heart. Bex is doubtful of Freddie’s relationship with Daphne because they don’t have the same kind of connection that Freddie and Bex do, but in the end, she realizes that Freddie has to find his own way, even if it isn’t the one she would have chosen. She has to trust him to create his own happiness with the choices he makes, just as she’s had to. Freddie and Daphne’s marriage is a bit of a slap in the face to the traditional romantic, because as Daphne says, “I know I am not the love of his life. Not yet.” But at the same time, being with her is “a place of his own” (p. 343). It’s a new start for him, and sometimes, that’s what you have to have if you’re going to heal. And it’s a reminder that love can come in many forms, and “none is more valid than the other” (p. 416).

I haven’t even mentioned the bigger intrigue running through the story—the backstory of Queen Eleanor, her husband, and her sister, Georgina. Without going into details, that part of the story was messy in all the right ways—it provided tension at places that would otherwise have been tame, and it all ties into and mirrors the relationships happening amongst the current generation. I really liked that this book focused on the idea that generational trends can be broken. History doesn’t have to repeat itself. This book also focused on the power of the truth and the ways that facts can be twisted and shaped to tell the story you want them to. That’s a good thing to remember outside of fiction. Also, this book gave me way more sympathy for famous people (as well as a burning desire never to be famous). Having everything you do, say, or even wear scrutinized within an inch of its life? No way. Privacy is a gift that no one should take for granted.

Overall, this was an excellent sequel. Five stars, highly recommend, and all that. Basically, just read it!

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