The secret lives of royals sounded promising by the synopsis.

Back when I first read it I had trouble getting into the story line because of the pacing and the formatting of the book. It was a did not finish early on.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for allowing me the chance to read and review.

Olivia has recently graduated from Yale and working at Starbucks when a job as an editor at a Vogue-like magazine practically falls in her lap. The ensuing story is what she discovers about herself (that she’s royalty) and the people who leveraged her to get the job.
I give this one two stars. I didn’t like the writing style. It was, I don’t know, not very immersive maybe. I wasn’t sucked in.

The characterization was sorely lacking. The main character stays pretty much the same throughout the short novel. The best friend was treated with vague mentions and two or three big scenes. The two, yeah love triangle, love interests were without chemistry.

This premise sounded good from the start, but as I continued reading, I started to lose hope. This book just didn't read well. The concept was good, but the execution was lacking.

I had a great deal of difficulty finishing this one. Though I was intrigued by the story's premise, it just didn't draw me in.

I started reading this one but didn't hold my interest. I though the concept was good but I wish I could have connected with the characters more.

Oof. This one was a struggle to get through. I didn't find the characters or the plot to be very engaging. The plot had a lot of potential, but it just didn't work. The world building just seemed off, nothing really made sense or was explained well, I felt like it was often contradicting itself. I would have liked to see more character development, but all the love triangle stuff took away from any real growth that could have happened. I wished that there had been more to the overall story arc, it just wasn't developed enough to be worthwhile.

I did not finish this title, after reading 20% as I found the quality of writing and formatting of the digital copy to be poor.

I swear if I didn’t know better I would think that I was Olivia in a different life, never mind that she’s a fictional character (or is she...) I really enjoyed this book, and the secret society within it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Createspace for the release of the book for review!

I absolutely loved the concept of this book. It introduces a world where an elite group of people called The Circle effectively control everything in the world. They decide what trends will become popular, what politicians will be voted in, who will become famous and have control over the economy, wars, and everything in between. If you're a lover of conspiracy theories like me, this book will really appeal to you. I would also like to add that Dua has a very quirky, different writing style that I think has a whole boatload of potential. Her descriptive paragraphs were very well formulated and while the characters weren't all time favourites, I did like them. She may be one of the only authors I've read who has created a love triangle in which I'm truly not sure which one I have a preference for.

With that being said, I did not enjoy this book. I think that this is a debut author so I really think it takes a lot to put a story out there for others read. I wanted to really like but I just found myself really pushing my way through. The writing really lacked a lot for me. I think it just really needs to be edited and again fill in some gaps. It could be a great story with a good edit.

This was a cute quick read.
But, It kind of made me crazy!
So Olivia is just a normal girl then she gets told she is from a line of royals. (reminded me a bit like Princess Diaries)
She had a Boyfriend (Alex) who just up and disappeared and then popped back up and they become friends. Really, I don’t know if I would want to be friends with someone who just leaves with no word.
I like the characters but part of the book was hard to get through.

I was not able to get through the first few chapters as it wasn't written in an engaging manner for me.

While the description of this book was entirely full of promise and the heroine had a pretty great name I might add *wink wink* it fell completely flat. The ideas sounded new and fun, but a hidden royal bloodline and a love triangle made it seem like just another book. Nothing special to be of note.

I did love the secret society aspects, I'm a sucker for secrets. But, everything felt very OTT (over the top).

If I had read this book when I was younger, middle school age, for example, I would have liked it. The standards for storytelling have gone up and I don't think this book is up to snuff.

This was an enjoyable book to read. Olivia is a strong character which when her world turns upside down she takes it all in her stride. After getting offered her dream job from a phone call interview she later learns that she is from a line of royals which is a secret society in this world.
There is also prophecies added into the story focusing on her love life. I feel that i definatley ship her with connor then i do Alex. The book is very fast paced with Olivia moving around a lot and this has a huge impact on her friendships that our outside of her new life.
I gave this book 4 stars.

Dear God! This book made sigh with exasperation and roll my eyes to a permanent position in the back of my head. Seriously, it was dreadfully basic and uninspiring. If you have ever watched or read a “chick flick” type storyline then you know all about the book! The cast was seriously bland, and I have totally forgotten them. The main character was also very generic and lifeless. I could not get into the book at all. The pacing was slow, the writing was rudimentary, the editing was lack lustering at best, and then there was the fact that the author contradicts themselves so many times that you never know what your reading is new or confused timelines.
The heroine is supposed to be the first American in this wild take on “Royalty” but then they say there is an American line… so which is it? Or that in some parts of the book its night and the five seconds later midday. Did we time warp? Speaking of time warps… This character decided to go shopping in Italy, so she flew there, shopped all day, and flew back – ALL BY LUNCHTIME! Someone please tell me how that is possible?!? Did anyone bother to edit this book? Which is why I gave it 1 Stars and DNF about 75% through.

Olivia leads a pretty average early-20-something's life but is deeply put off by that until one day she gets invited to a secret society of people descendant from royalty and suddenly all of her dreams come true. Snazzy job that's way above her skill level, hot guys, extravagant vacations, the works. I don't know what happens after that because I bailed.



I picked this one up for two reasons - I had a lot of world questions I wanted the answer to, and that crown/chandelier thing on the cover. What, it's clever, don't look at me like that. But when Olivia finally gets to the secret society and I think I've finally found what I came for...nope. And I don't mean things that might be a twist, I mean some basic shit that really should be covered. Like...wtf does 'descendant from royalty' cover? And how is that secret? We've got wikipedia pages for England's royal family all the way out to like fourth cousins or something, so how descendant are we talking here? There's mention made of some some minimum heritage standard, but not what that standard is. And they secretly rule the world, like to micromanaging Illuminati levels. That's...at once really boring and raises so many questions.



So, yeah, to get to this point I had to wade through a lot of really dense, boring summaries of Olivia's life, during which there was little dialogue or development. It was literally just 'summaries of what Olivia did today.' And summaries of a 20-something just randomly being handed her every wish are kind of dull. I get the wish-fulfillment aspect, but at least give me some engagement to read about. And then to realize my pressing questions weren't the book's pressing questions? Yeah, that makes it more of a personality mismatch than a problem, but I'm still outie.
(to be posted 8/27)

This was a wonderful read! I'm a sucker for anything that has to do with royalty so I'm always eager to read books that deal with that subject

Love this storyline. Would have liked a little more intrigue and mystery to the lifestyle and would have like a more conclusive ending. Overall an easy read and enjoyable for those fans of chick lit.

I was thoroughly excited for this book. Once I got a little further into it the story seemed full of frivolous people just being rich and blowing off work. Olivia started out as a relatable character with ambition and drive, but once she is presented with an opportunity to be rich she pretends to be torn and then proceeds to binge watch at eat at home instead of work for weeks at a time. I was hopeful when the Royal society talked about influencing the world for the better to make it a better place, but then those conversations seems to go nowhere and are eclipsed by gowns and private planes.

I received a free ebook version of this book from Netgalley. Thankyou to Netgalley and CreateSpace for allowing me to read this! My review is still entirely honest.

Oh no. I really wanted to give this a good review. The author of this book is a debut author, and after seeing that the average rating on Goodreads was quite low, I really wanted to introduce something positive. While I do have some great things to say about this, overall I can't say it's a book I was especially pleased with.
I absolutely loved the concept of this book. It introduces a world where an elite group of people called The Circle effectively control everything in the world. They decide what trends will become popular, what politicians will be voted in, who will become famous and have control over the economy, wars, and everything in between. If you're a lover of conspiracy theories like me, this book will really appeal to you. I would also like to add that Dua has a very quirky, different writing style that I think has a whole boatload of potential. Her descriptive paragraphs were very well formulated and while the characters weren't all time favourites, I did like them. She may be one of the only authors I've read who has created a love triangle in which I'm truly not sure which one I have a preference for.
Where this book fell flat for me was with the writing. While I did say that the writing could be quirky and different, I didn't find this to be consistent. My main feeling was that this book needs a few more edits. Often the chapter breaks didn't seem to have any logic, and certain scenes would be brushed over by telling us quickly what happened in a paragraph. It could be very show-not-tell at times. I felt it lacked a certain fluency, and events didn't seem to lead from one another, but almost seemed entirely independent of one another. This is certainly not irredeemable-as I say, there were times in the book where I felt the writing was quite strong, but as a whole, I just think this could have used more work from an editorial team.
To summarise, this is a book that had a whole lot of potential but just wasn't quite there for me. I would be interested in reading more from this author in the future however.

At times the plot was a little slow, and had me wondering where it would go. Overall it was a fairly enjoyable book, it wasn't one of my favourites though. Something about the book just didn't excite me like others do.
I didn't really connect with the characters too much. I don't think there was enough character development throughout the book, and I just didn't emphasise with them like I think it was intended.
I feel like it's intended for a young audience, as it's quite a simple book, so early teens and slightly younger would probably enjoy this book more than I did. But it got me back into reading, so it wasn't all bad. The plot was a good plot, I just don't think it was executed quite as well as it could have been.