Paper Princess
Series: The Royals #1
Genre: YA/NA Romance
Author: Erin Watt
Release Date: April 4, 2016
From strip clubs and truck stops to southern coast mansions and prep schools, one girl tries to stay true to herself.
These Royals will ruin you…
Ella Harper is a survivor—a pragmatic optimist. She’s spent her whole life moving from town to town with her flighty mother, struggling to make ends meet and believing that someday she’ll climb out of the gutter. After her mother’s death, Ella is truly alone.
Until Callum Royal appears, plucking Ella out of poverty and tossing her into his posh mansion among his five sons who all hate her. Each Royal boy is more magnetic than the last, but none as captivating as Reed Royal, the boy who is determined to send her back to the slums she came from.
Reed doesn’t want her. He says she doesn’t belong with the Royals.
He might be right.
Wealth. Excess. Deception. It’s like nothing Ella has ever experienced, and if she’s going to survive her time in the Royal palace, she’ll need to learn to issue her own Royal decrees.
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You should know whatever game you’re playing, you can’t win. Not against all of us.
If you leave now, you won’t be hurt. If you stay, we’ll break you so bad that you’ll be crawling away.”
Let’s talk about things that trigger my one-clicker for a second here, shall we?
Authors: we have a book that’s basically an angst filled love child of Cruel Intentions and Gossip Girl. There’s YA kind angst but with NA kind scenarios. There’s hate lust, an incredible tough as nails heroine, a bunch of sexy rich and entitled brothers that have enough issues to fill up Grand Canyon, a broody as hell alphahole hero that you’ll love to hate but secretly mainly love, and all of it is wrapped up in a story that’s more addicting than crack.
Me: 
That about sum it up for you then? Good. Because if ever there was ever a book that was custom written for me, this is that book. At first the YA tag turned me away because I’m not a reader that enjoys YA. But the only thing YA about this book are the characters’ ages; the heroine is 17 and the setting is in high school. However, the events that take place are focused towards a more mature NA, which just happens to be my catnip.
Ella Harper is exactly the kind of heroine I love to read about. She’s led a hard life in her young 17 years. Her mom may have been flighty and jumping from one boyfriend to the next all her life while struggling to support the both of them, but she’s all she’s ever known. Now that her mother has passed away, Ella has nothing and no one and struggles to make ends meet just to make it through high school so she can go on to college. When a man shows up at her school claiming to be her legal guardian and her father’s best friend, she’s rightful skeptical. But Callum is determined to help once he sees the way Ella’s been living and it’s not long before she arrives on the Royal doorstep much to the disgruntlement of Callum’s five sons.
To say they’re not happy to see her, is an understatement. The Royals rule the school Ella now goes to and what they say goes. They’re determined not to go easy on the new girl, especially one that clearly doesn’t belong in their world. But Ella is no wilting wallflower. This girl gives as good as she gets and boy does that make for some entertaining reading.
This book was the perfect combination of angst with a slow burn of hate/lust all wrapped around an undercurrent of a slow burn sexual tension. Reed Royal is a character that you can’t help but love even while you love to hate him. He’s not nice to Ella, not at all, but yet the way that he’s written you can’t help but know there’s something beneath the surface of what he lets you see.; something dark and deep and you’re just itching to scratch at it to know what it is.
I absolutely devoured this book, and by devoured I mean I couldn’t put it down for even a second. It’s been a long while where a book has managed to suck me in as much as this one did. It’s filled with teenage angst and drama and characters that you can’t help but fall for. The authors did a phenomenal job creating these characters that are so real they practically jump off at the pages. I was enamored with the story. I was hooked on each page like a junky craving their next fix and angst just happens to be my drug of choice.
As for that ending? Well let’s just say I may or may not be rocking myself in a corner as we speak while I wait for July 25 to finally get here
And if there’s one thing that I’ve come to love from her it’s her incredibly sexy MM that she somehow manages to pack full of so much feeling, it practically jumps off the pages at you. And this book? This fantastically written, utterly unputdownable book may be my favorite book by her yet. I never thought I’d say this, but Finley and Brantley took my number one spot from Tate and Logan, and let me just tell you that I LOVED Tate and Logan.
The chemistry between Daniel and Brantley was palpable, as was their emotional connection. I absolutely loved the way that Ella Frank managed to flawlessly weave very well times flashbacks to work with the story. I’m a picky reader when it comes to flashbacks and I can easily say the way they were written here was my absolute favorite. They were well paced and perfectly timed to work with the story and drive the plot.
Powerful.
You know when you read an epilogue that’s so good, it not only manages to be the perfect conclusion to the book but it actually flawlessly ties the entire series up. Like you have this amazingly delicious three-tiered cake, and it’s already prefect without anything, but then you add that icing that takes it from delicious to amazing? That’s what the epilogue of Appealed was to me. It was simple perfection. It deserves 5 stars just for that. But let’s talk about the actual book for a hot second here, shall we?
So at this point of the book, I’m as giddy as a Bilieber at a Justin Bieber concert. Their constant barbs in the courtroom and outside of it are laden with a heavy undercurrent of lust and you’re reading just waiting for them to give into the undeniable chemistry that’s brewing between them. And let’s be honest, what’s better than hate-to-lust? When it’s gloriously written entirely in the male POV and I fell hard for Brent from the very first chapter. He may be the happy-go-lucky friend of the group, but there was always something to him that just drew me. It may be because it’s not often you’ll read about a hero with a prosthetic leg that didn’t suffer his injury during a deployment. Or it may be because of his humor. But really it’s because when this man falls, he falls hard and he has no issue showing it and fighting for what he wants.
You know when you read the first book in a series and you love it so much that you don’t think anything can top it, but then you read the second and you love it just as much? So then you know that the chances of that continue to hold for the 3rd book are slim, right? In my experience, it’s tough to keep that sort of momentum going…unless, of course, you’re Elle Kennedy. Because not only was The Score absolutely fantastic, but it turned out to be my favorite in the series. And considering how much I loved the previous two books, that’s saying something.
What I love about Elle’s writing, is the depth that she gives her characters. And Dean certainly was no exception. He may be the hard partying manwhore with a crass sense of humor, but beneath that perfect exterior there’s so much more to him and you really get to see it blossom here.
It’s been a long time that I read a book that effected me on such a visceral level. I had honest to god tingles while reading this. My heart was beating out of my chest, my head was spinning, and I was completely and utterly incapable of putting it down for even a second. It’s also been a long time that I read a hero that was so alpha he practically crackled with electric magnetism through the pages. This book hit every single one of my yes spots. It’s exactly the kind of thrill I love in my romance. It was unpredictable, erotic, a little taboo, undeniably captivating and absolutely spell-binding. It’s also almost impossible to review without giving anything away, so excuse my attempt at trying…
The sexual aspect of the romance may take many out of their comfort zones, so if you’re not a reader that’s comfortable with that, this book may not be for you. It has a touch of BDSM and yet…not quite. There’s no clear lines, and that may not work for some. Emily is a multi-faceted character and her desires are not quite…standard. But that’s what truly works because you can see exactly what draws these characters together.
Then Laurelin hits you with the mother of all cliffhangers but I swear it just made the book all that much better. Does that even make sense? Ugh. I don’t even care because it does to me. The wait for the second book just may kill me, but I don’t regret it for even a second. This book was nothing that I expected and yet everything that I love. If you’re looking for something spellbinding and different, this is a must read. First touch is part one in a duet.
You know what I love about Penelope Douglas’s writing? Well, aside from the obvious everything. It’s her consistency. She never fails to deliver an absolutely enrapturing read with a strong heroine and an absolutely to die for hero. Her writing is magnetic, her romances are scorching, and her characters unforgettable. Misconduct is proof that not only can she write amazing New Adult Like Bully, or scorching hot dark erotica like Corrupt, but she’ll bring her A game to contemporary romance. And bring her a game she did, because I loved absolutely everything about this book.
The one thing I’ve come to truly love about Penelope’s writing, is her ability to write a devastatingly intense hero. Because let me just tell you, the first time Tyler Marek makes an appearance on a page, not an ovary within a 100 mile radius will be safe. He captures your attention immediately, and he keeps it completely. The man is absolute sex on a stick. 
