Rowena’s review of Royally Lost by Angie Stanton.
Dragged on a family trip to Europe’s ancient cities, Becca wants nothing more than to go home. Trapped with her emotionally distant father, over-eager stepmother, and a brother who only wants to hook up with European hotties, Becca is miserable. That is until she meets Nikolai, a guy as mysterious as he is handsome. And she unknowingly finds herself with a runaway prince.
Nikolai has everything a guy could ask for-he’s crown prince, heir to the throne, and girls adore him. But the one thing he doesn’t have…is freedom. Staging a coup, he flees his kingdom and goes undercover on his own European tour.
When Nikolai and Becca meet, it’s their differences that draw them together. Sparks fly as they share a whirlwind of adventures, all the while dodging his royal guard. But Becca’s family vacation ends in a matter of days. Will Nikolai and Becca be forced to say goodbye forever, will his destiny catch up to him, or will they change history forever?
This is the book that I thought Through to You by Lauren Barnholdt was going to be. Light and fluffy. There isn’t much depth to this book and sometimes, that’s just what you need.
Royally Lost is about Becca, an American girl who just graduated from high school and is stuck on a European family vacation that she doesn’t want to be on and Nikolai, a runaway Prince who wants to get away from his family responsibilities and be anonymous for a little while. They run into each other in Budapest and kind of keep running into each other until they become friends and then within two days, they fall in love. Hmm.
Yeah, this book was completely full of cheese with the whole Prince in disguise thing and slumming it with the fun American girl but after reading books like Tease by Amanda Maciel and then Through to You by Lauren Barnholdt, I was glad for the cheese. I can’t say that I would have enjoyed this book as much as I did had I not read those other two books before but I will say that it worked for what I was in the mood to read and even though the whole plot was completely laughable, I’m glad that I gave this book a go.
Nikolai was a pretty stand up guy. He was great. Good looking, charming and everything girls love in a love interest but I’m sorry, he was a complete stranger to Becca and I found it really hard to believe that she took off with a complete stranger for an entire day in a foreign country. Hasn’t she seen the Taken movies? Hasn’t she watched Turistas? I wanted to smack some sense into Becca but since Nikolai didn’t end up chopping her into a million pieces or sell her into the sex trade business, alls well that ends well.
Becca was a fun character to get to know. I liked her relationship with her brother Dylan. They reminded me of me and my brother, Pete. We were always covering for each other because that’s what siblings do. They help each other and swap favors to get out of doing family things. It’s the way that things should be. I also enjoyed Becca’s step mother Vicky. I liked that Vicky just wanted to be there for Becca and when Becca finally lets her in, I thought their relationship was cute. Vicky wasn’t the stereotypical bitchy Step Mom and I liked that.
Overall, this book was cute and fun. It’s not a book that I’ll probably read again but it isn’t a book that I’m mad that I read either. It worked for the mood I was in and I’m glad.
Grade: 2.5 out of 5
This book is available from Harper Teen. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.