Rating: 4.5 Stars

Publisher: E.M. Lindsey

Genre: Gay ‘Royal’ Romance

Tags: Contemporary, Disability, Opposites Attract, Romance

Length: 257 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

As an actor, there’s nothing more humbling than crawling my way back into the spotlight after a vicious spiral that nearly ended my career. But I’m determined to do it. Especially since the role of a lifetime was just dropped into my lap: the chance to play Camillo Soriano, the stone-faced, unflappable, second-born Prince.

This is my chance to make it, to prove to the world that I’m not the mess the media wants everyone to believe I am.
But things get complicated when the studio decides to hire a wheelchair consultant to ensure I’m doing the job right. And not just any consultant, but the Prince himself…

…and Camillo is not thrilled about the casting.

Now have a babysitter on set, and with Camillo’s standards, the infuriatingly gorgeous Prince isn’t making it easy on me.

The man is an absolute royal pain, but the more I get to know him, the more I realize how much we’re alike. It’s becoming increasingly obvious he’s the only person who truly understands me, and the longer we’re together, the more I start to believe in fate.

Royal Crush is an enemies to lovers, actor/prince standalone with a snarky wheelchair using prince, a bitter former child actor, secret dates, tons of snark and banter, the inglorious realities of doing spicy scenes for a camera, a secret romance and a swoony, steamy happily ever after.

Review –

Aleric is a former child actor. He was very popular back in the day… until one day he wasn’t. He had an emotional breakdown in public, and that was that. Career over. Stint in rehab. You know the drill. We’ve seen it a million times with former child actors. It’s fifteen years later and he’s being given a chance to do a TV show based on the memoir of Prince Camillo of Caverna, a small country somewhere in Europe. This is also where Aleric is from. This could be it, his chance, his way of coming back to doing something he loves – acting.

Unfortunately, the media doesn’t forget anything, and all Aleric’s issues from the past are brought up constantly, and not just in interviews. The other actors on the set treat him like they’re waiting for him to fail. Hell, some want him to fail. That’s especially true with a slimy director who’s hoping Aleric has a dirty drug test so he can be booted from the show and sued for contract violation.

Then there’s Prince Camillo himself. Camillo was paralyzed in an accident caused by papparazzi also fifteen years ago. He had zero say over the rights of his memoir being sold for a series. He’s asked to be a consultant on set. He’s against Aleric on sight. Not because of Aleric’s past because Camillo never cared much for TV back when he was younger. His main issue is having an able-bodied person playing the role when there are a lot of disabled ones who could easily do the job. I could definitely see where he was coming from.

Camillo makes it no secret that he’s against Aleric playing him in the series. He’s quite vocal about everything he’s doing wrong. Aleric has it bad enough with the cast treating him like something on the bottom of their shoe, and now Camillo. He can’t catch a break.

Something changes when Camillo watches interviews of Aleric, and he sees things others likely don’t. Aleric plays the game well, but it’s obvious that he’s scared, and he’s rightfully sick of every single interviewer bringing up his past.

This was a man with a past full of trauma that no child should ever experience. Something that warped him – shaped him into the person he was today.

All I could ask now was who had failed him? Who allowed a child to be beaten down so badly they looked like this?

Then there’s Camillo, whose whole life is in the public eye. From before his accident until long after, everything he does is scrutinized. Not as much as his brother Carlo, future King of Caverna, but still.

They slowly start opening up to each other, and they realize how much they need each other, and not for the TV show. Vulnerabilities and fears are shared. Both men suffered something horrific at the hands of men they made the mistake of trusting. Camillo after his accident, and Aleric when he was just a child.

Camillo and Aleric coming together was really nice to watch. They went from enemies to lovers fairly quickly, but it wasn’t just that. They were falling in love with each other. Even so, they weren’t naive enough to think it wouldn’t be a disaster for them publicly. It was really sweet as they tried to navigate their feelings with everything else going on around them.

I applaud the author for how she wrote Camillo’s disability. While I wouldn’t say the book went into too much graphic detail, it did give the reader an inside view of what he went through on a daily basis, and how he and Aleric came together as a couple. The reader was also given the hard truths about what some child actors go through.

Aleric’s parents were never on page, but I hated them just the same. And while I can’t say I hated Camillo’s parents, the king and queen, I wasn’t overly thrilled over them either. Let’s just say there was a very strong dislike, even though they weren’t on page either.

I absolutely loved Prince Carlo. I wasn’t sure about him at first, but he showed a few times that while he may be the future king, he was still an annoying big brother.

I did have a couple of issues with the book. I felt that certain things were rushed at the end, and others not really elaborated on. I kind of felt that there were a lot of missed opportunities. Even so, I really enjoyed it.

A very nice story.