TEST
I’m not a royal-watcher, and as a rule, I’m not a fan of royal romances. Of those I’ve read (and that isn’t a large number) the only one that really worked for me was Lilah Pace’s His Royal Secret/His Royal Favorite duology, and a big part of that was because the author had taken care to set the story in an AU (alternate) but recognisable contemporary Britain in which all the important things (like the two world wars) still happened, but the royal line had taken a different direction. When I read the synopsis for Miranda Dubner’s début novel The Spare I was intrigued by the storyline and pleased to see that the book is also set in carefully constructed AU. I decided to give it a try, and I’m very glad I did.
HRH Edward Nicholas William Desmond Kensington, second son of Queen Victoria II – and the eponymous spare – arrives, somewhat apprehensively, at the Royal Opera House to attend a performance at which his mother, his sister Alexandra, and various other society luminaries will also be present. Handsome, suave, charming Edward is the real ‘people person’ of the next generation of royals; he’s always been the one to deflect unwanted attention with a quip or able to turn an awkward conversation with a well-placed question or anecdote, and going to a royal gala is nothing he hasn’t done a hundred times before. But this time is different. A couple of weeks earlier, he was forcibly outed when a tabloid printed a photograph of him, taken when he was at university, which clearly shows him in an embrace with another man. This is his first public appearance since the story broke, and while he knows all too well he’s going to be the subject of hushed gossip and hurriedly-stopped conversations, he doesn’t know how bad it’s going to be. He’s bisexual, and his family is aware of it; and while he wanted to come out, he knows there was never going to be a good time for him to do it and has been holding off for the sake of his family, which has suffered enough scandal in the past decade due to his parents’ divorce, the first ever involving a reigning monarch – but the rainbow cat is well and truly out of the bag now and the fallout has to be dealt with.
The Palace communications team is, of course, keen to mitigate the damage, and they suggest Eddie squashes the “ugly rumours” by being seen with a suitable (and carefully vetted) young woman he could believably form a “long connection” with. Even as he knew this was going to be the likely response, and that he has no alternative but to do what is being asked of him – just like he always has – internally, he’s railing against the frustration that he can do nothing about the invasion of privacy he’s suffered, the demand that he continue to deny who he really is – and that he still has to hide the fact that for the last eight years, he’s been in love with a former SAS officer by the name of Isaac Cole. Who happens to be his principal protection officer. His bodyguard.
The first part of the novel offers readers a good insight into the relationship between Eddie and Isaac (although I can’t deny I’d have liked it to have been fleshed out a little more), and offers a bit of their backstory and an explanation for exactly how and why they have become so close. Isaac is every bit as gone for Eddie as vice versa, but he’s never been anything but professional around him, has never overstepped any boundaries… until the night a bomb goes off at a high-profile London club – with Eddie in the middle of it.
I’m not going to give more specifics about the plot, because there’s a lot of it. The synopsis for The Spare talks more about the romance between Eddie and Isaac than about anything else in the book, but after the bombing, the focus widens and it becomes more of a family drama. Eddie and Isaac are at the heart of the story; even when they’re separated for a chunk of the second half, the depth of their longing for one another is always there in the background – but there’s a lot more going on than just their romance. One of the people Eddie has been trying so hard to protect from the media spotlight over the years is his older brother Arthur, Prince of Wales, who has recently been pretty much ordered to leave the job he loves with the RAF and come back to join the circus (the real royals refer to The Firm; here, it’s The Circus, which is a good alternative!) and who is quiet, reserved and not as well-equipped as Eddie to deal with life in the goldfish bowl of media attention. There’s his sister Alexandra, whom the media has labelled self-absorbed and empty-headed, and his complicated, conflicting feelings about his father, whose addictions and infidelities eventually led to the end of his marriage, but whom Eddie can’t quite bring himself to hate. All these other storylines are really well done and all the characters – from the principal players down to the smallest bit-parts – are superbly fleshed-out, making it easy to become invested in them and their stories. I ended up loving the book, but I realise it may not work as well for others because of the wider focus than one normally expects in a romance.
The author has obviously done her homework (her author’s note is well worth reading), looking into the way the Royal Family works and various customs and protocols (and has adapted some of them in a way that makes them perfectly plausible), but unfortunately this makes the Americanisms – fall, fawcet, trash, diaper, ass – seriously, this sentence: “A bunch of politicians who think I’m an idiot are going to surreptitiously stare at my ass” will make any British person wonder why a bunch of politicians are going to stare at a donkey; using “school” to mean higher education and describing Isaac as a “upperclassman” – stick out like sore thumbs. It’s a shame, when Ms. Dubner has clearly worked very hard on giving the novel the ring of authenticity, to be let down by things like that, but I understand corrections will be made in future editions.
There are places where the book could have done with a stronger editorial hand, a few scenes that didn’t seem to accomplish anything or go anywhere, and perhaps a couple that could have been reserved for later books (the author implies in her author’s note that there could be more to come).
Ultimately however, I really enjoyed The Spare and raced through it in a couple of sittings. It’s sharply observant, especially when it comes to the workings of today’s media and how vicious it can be; it’s funny – the banter is fresh and witty – and there are some incredibly poignant moments, some of them coming from a quarter you’d least expect. The plot does get a bit soapy towards the end, and there was one thing that I side-eyed hard, but in the end, I was enjoying the book so much, I decided to go with the flow.
Part romance, part family drama, The Spare may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it worked well for me in spite of its flaws. I’ll definitely be on the look-out for more from Miranda Dubner.
Buy it at: Amazon
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Grade: A-
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 22/04/20
Publication Date: 04/2020
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
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Finished this a few days ago and really enjoyed it. I have a high tolerance for bending the romance genre rules, and thoroughly enjoyed all the other characters and subplots. I liked the spirit of the ending, but it came together a little too neatly/quickly in the end for me. Trying to avoid spoilers here . . . but I wanted to spend a little more time with Edward and Isaac, as they worked things out between themselves. Not that these two wouldn’t have ended up in the same place, and I liked the various family members supporting roles for both of them at the end. I get what the writer was trying to do with the ending, but it made their HEA feel like an after-thought to me. These two deserved a little more time together on the page. Having said that, I’ll be curious to see what Dubner writes next.
Yes, the rushed ending/conclusion.to Eddie and Isaac’s romance was one of the reasons I couldn’t give this a flat-out A.
Does anyone know if there is an audio book planned? This sounds great, and I would love to listen to it if it is ever available on audio.
It’s only just come out and it’s a self-published author and a first book, so maybe it’s a bit early for her to make a decision about that yet. I will ask at some point though.
Update – YES, Joel Leslie is going to be recording it in a couple of months. And as I was reading it, it was HIS voice I kept hearing in my head! Clearly, I am a genius. Or something….
Genius. Definitely!
I second (third?) the Molly O’Keefe recommendation. MY WICKED PRINCE is also a step-siblings romance (although the h&h were adults when their parents got married) if that is or is not your thing.
I also enjoyed Kati Wilde’s THE KING’S HORRIBLE BRIDE, which features a heroine who was “promised” to the king when she was in her teens and has been patiently waiting for over a decade for him to step up to marriage—and she has meanwhile been doing all sorts of charitable and good works for their country.
Karina Halle has several royal romances set in alternate-Scandinavian countries. My favorites are THE WILD HEIR and excellent & quite melancholy A NORDIC KING.
I liked Lilah Pace ‘s duology a lot, too.
Recently, I read a nice AU book by Sophie Page, To Marry a Prince, which I also enjoyed (pseudonym of Sophie Weston).
I also utterly loved “Queen from the North” an AU by Racheline Maltese and Erin McRae.
Will check this one out, too, I like these books occasionally, when they have some “realism”, i.e. dynamics that actually accept the difficulties of the situation, and has some sort of family dynamics and spirit of service to the country in it.
Thanks !
Huh, this was nowhere on my radar! Will try it out soon!
I was vaguely aware of this book via GoodReads, but I’ve avoided it because I thought it was a YA, and I don’t love royal-centered novels. My exceptions are the same ones you mention; I loved the Pace books duology, but I loathed a new, popular queer royal/presidential rom-com that was everywhere in my corner of Romancelandia in 2019, & I wasn’t looking forward to more of the same.
This sounds much different than I what I thought it was. I’m excited to start reading it. The Americanism’s probably won’t bother me quite as much, although I’m happy to hear she’s open to corrections in future editions.
I love discovering new authors & celebrating them here at AAR. Glad you found this diamond in the rough!
It’s most definitely NOT Red, White and Royal Blue :) This was nowhere on my radar until I saw a Tweet mentioning it. Given I’m not big on social media, it’s probably a miracle I even saw it, but I did, and here we are!
We have a royalty tag!
https://allaboutromance.com/review-tag/royalty/
One I liked that didn’t get a lot of buzz was Molly O’Keefe’s My Wicked Prince, which is about an Iceland-type small island monarchy.
(Iceland-type in geography, not in monarchy, obviously!)
I liked that one! And I totally forgot about it! Good thing we have a tag. I think I might have reviewed it, too?!
I think we reviewed it TOGETHER!!! My brain is so melted…
Sounds more entertaining than the self-centered solopistic Sussex drama. Agree that it’s a shame when American expressions get mixed in but …… think of that Cadillac SUV recently seen. Makes a change from Rollers and Aston Martins! I am sorely tempted by this one, Caz.
Reviews are generally positive, although some less so because the book isn’t completely focused on the romance. I admit that because of that I didn’t expect to enjoy the book as much as I did, but once I got into it, I couldn’t put it down.
The author has told me that she will do her best to correct the Americanisms in future editions (one of the advantages of self-publishing!) – she was very gracious about it, and a lot of other US authors writing books set in the UK would do well to learn a lesson from her!
Wow! That’s great, Caz, that the author can make some hopefully make some corrections; if only everyone writing in another time/culture thought these things through before putting pen/plume to paper/parchment. Right, now to get off my hobby horse and enjoy a cuppa in the sunshine in the garden.
She was lovely, wasn’t she?
It’s made me think AAR should review a few more books by unknowns. #noTwitterRage
I agree – although there probably aren’t too many out there as good as this one.