I enjoyed this book! It’s a light sloe burn romance with the main setting being The Tower of London where the main character, Maggie, lives. I liked the fact that I found this book really easy to follow along and read, there was information and facts about the Tower but it wasn’t overwhelming and it was fun to learn new things about it.

I liked Maggies character but I think it would have been nice to learn a bit more about her other than what we see as we see this part of her life. That being said I liked Maggie! I also liked Freddie but I think he needed a bit more page time because I think there is so much more to him that I wish I had seen!

Also the twists, I think they definitely added an extra ‘thing’ to the story, especially the one about 85% in - I did NOT see that coming!! I’m glad about how it turned out but it was definitely a moment I did not see coming at all, it really upped the love stakes!

I also really enjoyed Mhairi’s character and I really would like a spin off book about her and her life!

Overall, I found Falling Hard for the Royal Guard a light, easy read and safe to safe I enjoyed it! I am giving this book 4 stars!

I originally requested ‘Falling hard for the royal guard’ because of its colourful and attractive cover, what I didn’t expect was the laugh out loud startling beginning. Maggie embodies so much of what I believe it’s like to be a single mid-late 20s woman. Reading the book was like going back down memory lane (minus the cheeky royal guards), but in an upbeat and more interesting way.

I enjoyed this book immensely and it really spurred on my current reading binge. The last few pages had me crying, but my heart had never felt lighter and heavier at the same time. I want to congratulate a Megan Clawson on her first book and hope that it’s the first of many.

I really enjoyed this book - though I wouldn't particularly call it a rom com. Sure, there are some comedic moments, but to me it wasn't a laugh out loud story.

I liked that I could picture the setting of Maggie and Freddie's story (thank you documentaries and google images hahah)

I liked Maggie, a lot. She is a wonderful leading lady, and she is an every girl. She is not perfectly model beautiful. She has her flaws, she has body image issues like we all do.. She wears her heart on her sleeve.

Freddie was lovely, then I hated him, then I loved him again.

Maggies workplace is toxic and every single one of her coworkers needs to have a permanent itch that they just can't scratch. I hate, hate, hated them all.

There is a great lot of secondary characters that just made this story even more enjoyable, and some that I would like to meet more of in the future.

Falling Hard for the Royal Guard filled a Princess Diaries hole in my heart. This story was so sweet and definitely made me swoon a few times.This was so fun to read! The MC is really loveable and relatable. I loved all the emotionally vulnerable stuff and all the wholesome scenes where she gained friends being as she is, and her scenes with the love interest Freddie. I liked her growth from hating herself but still respecting her self-worth to loving herself as she is. It was super wholesome and sweet.
Thank you again to NetGalley, Avon Books UK, and the author Megan Clawson for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I discovered Megan from her TikTok and followed her right away when I found out she lives in The Tower of London! I just thought it was amazing and I couldn't wait for her book to drop when I discovered she was writing! I absolutely love books set within the UK! I found Maggie very relatable in the fact she was cheated on and feels she's in a very dead end job. The characters (minus her ex) were very likeable and I loved how you can literally picture the setting too! I loved the map of The Tower at the beginning of the book too!

This was so fun to read! The MC is really loveable and relatable, and it was joy to read about her journey. I loved all the emotionally vulnerable stuff, and all the wholesome scenes where she gained friends being as she is, and her scenes with the love interest Freddie. I liked her growth from hating herself but still respecting her self-worth to loving herself as she is, it was super wholesome.

TWs - stalking and repeated harassment (both via phone and in person) by an ex boyfriend, death of a parent (her mom) (off page, but mentioned very frequently), emotional bullying by co-workers and boss, descriptions of the struggle and loneliness of army life (of both the soldiers and their families at home), person forced to choose an occupation due to their family (love interest faces this)

--- ty to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy!

Falling Hard for the Royal Guard filled a Princess Diaries hole in my heart. This story was so sweet and littered with a plethora of interesting facts about the Tower of London and it’s history. It gives a little insight as to what life inside those walls are like in the modern age and definitely made me swoon a few times.

I’ve been to the Tower of London a few times and stayed close by the last time I was in London so it was really fun to be able to fully picture the locations in this book as I read as well as giving me a peek behind the curtain. The story of Maggie and Freddie was a slow build, but pays off in the end despite their differences. I thought when I first started reading it that this was going to be an enemies to lovers story, but it wasn’t. Instead it was a lovely slow build of a friendship to something more that was fun to follow along.

I will say I do wish we had more interaction between our two leads in the front half of the book. They have a few run ins but a lot of the first half of the book is spent with conversations with the raven’s and giving us historical facts – both of which I enjoyed, but I would have loved a few more interactions with them to see their feelings grow.

I really loved the genuinely likeable side and main characters in the book and would happily read more about this group of characters.

This books was such a fun read for anyone who loves a story set in London, a good sweet royal romance, history and a romcom. Check it out on April 27th when it’s release!

Thank you again to NetGalley, Avon Books UK and the author Megan Clawson for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A lovely funny book with lots of laugh out moments following Maggie 26 who lives with her father in the Tower Of London as her father is a beefeater.. Maggie works in a ticket booth and is often late for work and one morning she bumps into a man as she is rushing to make it on time before her miserable supervisor Kevin catches her.
Later on she finds out the man is actually a guardsman at the tower called Freddie and as they get talking Maggie finds herself warming towards Freddie who sounds lovely and handsome and a charming personality and I loved hearing about the history of the tower plus the insight into the Beefeaters job.
By the end I really felt I knew all about the history of the Tower Of London and the different people who work there and look forward to visiting the Tower Of London one day.
Would highly recommend and thanks to NetGalley & Avon Books UK for a ARC for a honest review.

As a ten-year-old, I went on a school trip to the Tower of London & I loved it. This book takes me back there with the continuing fascination with the history of the tower.
Maggie Moore lives at the tower with her dad who is a 'Beefeater' & she works in the ticket office. Maggie moved in with her dad when her relationship broke down & she is very disillusioned with the dating world. Her head is turned by a Royal Guard, Freddie, but will anything happen?
A wonderful researched book by this debut author. Makes me want to visit the tower again & I may catch the eye of a Royal Guard too. Great read!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book.

Maggie Moore lives at the Tower of London. Yes, that Tower of London. After a breakup with her longtime boyfriend, she lives with her father at the historic site. When she meets Royal Guardsman Freddie, she is tumbled into an unexpected friendship, but could there be more?

While I liked this book for the most part, I think the pacing is off. It's slow. Everything feels dragged out to the point where you almost stop caring if Maggie and Freddie will get together. That was my biggest issue, but I also didn't find the romance compelling. There wasn't any chemistry between the two characters (I actually thought Maggie had more chemistry with a side character). I don't know. It was an okay read for me.

A stunning debut novel! I absolutely adored this book.

The setting and the ideas behind it are so unique and original and the characters really captured my heart. It was like nothing I've read before.

Very excited to see what Megan Clawson writes next!

honestly, this sounded like it promised some of my favourite parts of a good romance but I was a little let down. I saw the rating and thought ain't no way.. but there was, in fact, a way.

Reading this, I saw what I knew I could've liked buried under a lot of what I didn't and MOST of what I didn't like was how Maggie was written. You have a character who hated her job so she showed up late for it, hated her cheating ex who harasses her after the fact and receives no consequence for his actions, and hated her loneliness but made friends with every new person she met in this book (with the exception of her shitty boss and coworkers). She has no privacy and is sending her deceased mom life updates while having 0 on-paper connection with her father other than when she hangs out with him and his buddies. It just felt so back and forth and eventually became discombobulating. I went back a couple of times because it felt like her personality was so inconsistent at times that I must've misread it. I didn't, just to be clear. For Maggie, I guess the problems just felt very inward when they shouldn't have been. It made me consider HER the problem when she really wasn't. EXCEPT the fact that this girl was late for every other goddamn shift and it was driving me INSANE. GO TO WORK ON TIME.

Freddie and Maggie were cute but I didn't buy it. I think Maggie needed a life makeover before anything else and because I had my issues with her, it took me out of imagining her and Freddie together at all. I did like a lot of what went down towards the end of the book, ghosts and all, but it wasn't enough to change my mind. He kept dipping whenever he wanted and then he'd come back and invite her somewhere and run away then too. She was accepting crumbs and for what?

Overall, I didn't hate it but I definitely didn't like it as much as I had hoped I would. So many people seem to have enjoyed this much more so it's very possible that this was just me.

I went into this, honestly, because of the title! I am a sucker for all things royal and this sounded right up my alley. Spoiler alert: it was!



This book follows Maggie, a down on her luck twenty something living at home in the Tower of London after a bad breakup. A series of unfortunate incidents lands her (quite literally) into the orbit of royal guardsman Freddie. The two begin an unlikely friendship that leaves Maggie (and maybe also Freddie) wanting more. But is that even possible for the pair?



I was very surprised to learn this book was inspired by the author’s own life living in the Tower of London! I learned so much about the royal guard because of this book and would love to visit one day! I found the book to be incredibly charming and brimming with British humor and heart. I enjoyed following Maggie’s story and character growth. I also loved that each raven in the book had its own name and distinct personality. I definitely recommend you add it to your TBR or request from your local library!



Thank you to Avon Books and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy!

This is a sweet, sometimes amusing rom-com with a unique setting: the heroine lives in the Tower of London with her father, a royal guard. Her posh but sweet love interest, Freddie, is also a guard who is sometimes assigned to duty at the Tower. Their relationship is slow-burn, the supporting characters are fun, and the bad guys (a rat of an ex on her side and controlling, snobby parents on his) are suitably easy to hate.
If you find extreme clumsiness and naiveté in the female main character amusing, you'll appreciate the humor here. I'm not a big fan of that, and found it a bit overdone, but I enjoyed the latter part of the book more than the build-up. Maggie and Freddie are appealing, and their friends-to-lovers story is nicely developed. I also enjoyed the setting and historical details about the Tower.

I absolutely adored this book and stayed up until the early hours in an attempt to finish it. Loved the storyline and all the characters and the in depth descriptions of London tower was amazing. the only negative I have is that I I wish we had more of a romance element instead of just in the last 5% of the book

I desperately wanted to like Falling Hard for the Royal Guard, but I just couldn't connect with the story or Maggie (she irritated the crap out of me).

I struggled with Falling Hard for the Royal Guard right from the start, and frequently considered abandoning it. I didn't, because it is a debut novel. But Maggie, the main character, is dreadful. Clearly she has issues but, if we have her history explained to us, I missed it. I think we're supposed to feel sorry for her as her mother has died and her ex is truly appalling. But I just found Maggie irritating. She's frequently late for work and/or turns up drunk or hungover; when she's there she does as little as possible. Yes, her boss and colleagues are painted as being (unrealistically) horrible to her; there's enough abuse and bullying there to get them all fired, but Maggie just mutters about them, and carries on behivang like a self-centred and irresponsible teenager.

And then there's Freddie who is two-dimensional and hardly ever on the page. His friends are probably the best characters in the book, along with Mhairi and Katie who appear too close to the end. For me the book is padded out with too much detailed history, far too many conversations with ravens and cats, and a plethora of character traits not really ever combining to make living, breathing characters.

I do feel that the publisher should take some of the blame for my disgruntlement. The cover and the blurb do not lead any reader to expect the book on the pages.

Really good book, easy writing style and a fast plot.
I enjoyed it and i would recommend to everyone who want to read an easy romance

It's my first time reading something from this author and I was pleasantly surprised. A clean romance that is a perfect palate cleanser from the smutty novels I usually go for, the perfect mixture of history, humour, and love.

Maggie was a really complex character for a lighthearted rom-com and her personality had depth and dimension, conturing a person that struggles with insecurities just like the rest of us. As for Freddie, he was a grump with a great group of friends who added perfectly timed moments of comic relief.

Thank you NetGalley and Avon Books for giving me an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to like this book, I really, really did; however, it just fell flat. I found Maggie to be a caricatures of a corky, lonely, “I-want-to-be-loved” FMC. I wasn’t charmed by how she was always late for work, or her terrible dates and even worse ex-boyfriend. Her talking to the ravens was just weird and took up way too much of the book. The fact that she gave all the ravens names, and I was supposed to remember them was such a waste pages. Freddie was fine, but that’s it. I kept waiting for the book to get better and it got a little better about half way through, but it wasn’t enough to redeem it. It was too chaotic, there were too many characters, and there just wasn’t chemistry. I liked the new approach and a little bit of the history aspect, but it just felt forced. The author’s forward also made me feel really guilty for not liking this book because she basically says it’s inspired by her life and relationship. I appreciate that her time living in the Tower of London and falling in love with a beefeater was probably fantastic, but it didn’t translate well as a novel. 2⭐️, 0🌶