by Tate James & Jaymin Eve
Rating: ⭐3/5⭐
Book 1: Princess Ballot
You have been chosen.
Those four words change Violet Spencer’s whole life, when against staggering odds, she’s selected in the “princess ballot.”
Arbon Academy is affectionately known as the school for Royals. Only the rich, powerful, or heir to a throne gain entry… except for the one scholarship student accepted every five years. It’s a worldwide lottery, and one that Violet entered without giving it any serious thought.
But the media got it wrong and Arbon Academy is much more than a simple college for future leaders.
It’s a dark world of politics, intrigue, and dangerous guys who will stop at nothing to get their own way. Despite her best efforts at remaining off the radar, Violet finds herself a pawn between two of the most powerful monarchies in the world.
Prince Rafe of the Switzerlands and Prince Alex of the Australasias are bitter enemies both on the soccer field and in the political arena. Monarchies rule the world now, and every waking breath is a competition for the princes.
Control the ball.
Control the world.
Control Violet.
Whether it’s through love or hate, someone will ultimately win.
Book 2: Playboy Princes
She’s my last chance.
Those four words echo in Violet Spencer’s mind, tugging at her curiosity even as rage builds within her.
Arbon Academy was supposed to be a bright new start. An opportunity for greatness, and something an orphan girl could only dream of. For a while there, it seemed to be exactly that.
But Violet’s bright future is suddenly looking dim. Arbon Academy and Prince Alex are nothing but a facade. A trap.
In a sinister world of ballgowns and backstabbing, of perfumes and politics, of indulgent parties and illegal sword fights, Violet now faces the biggest challenge of all. Recovering her shattered heart from the prince who crushed it.
Supported by her new friends, Violet wants to make Alex feel the pain of his betrayal. Prince Rafe wants nothing more than to help make that happen, but things aren’t always so straightforward.
Don’t break tradition.
Don’t let them know you know.
Don’t lose your heart… again.
These rules will keep Violet alive. But at what cost?
Book 3: Poison Throne
They’re waiting for you.
Those four words should have been a warning. They should have filled Violet with dread. But she was so focused on Rafe’s disappearance, she forgot.
The resistance was supposed to be fighting for a better world. A group of freedom fighters formed during the Monarch War, pushing back against laws that would see everyone enslaved. For a while there, they gave hope.
But with power comes corruption. The Society has been quietly amassing the strength and backing to become a real threat, and not everyone wants to use that power for good.
In a world torn apart by the death of monarchs, new leaders rise. Violet dives headfirst into the viper’s nest with one singular goal: rescue the stolen prince who possesses half her heart.
With the unwavering support of Jordan at her side, Violet knows she can face whatever the resistance throws at them. Even if she was the intended target all along.
Keep your friends close.
Keep your enemies closer.
Never forget the betrayals of the past.
The end of an era is here.
Review
Seeing the covers side-to-side-to-side is wild.
The first one is so pretty, the second one is a photoshop mess—don’t look at the neck!—and the third one is hilarious because it’s all different people than in the previous two (and in all of them, everyone looks at least ten years older than the characters they’re supposed to be portraying).
I get indie authors most likely don’t have the funds to pay for models and professional photoshoots just to get a few covers, but omg, get a cover designer that’ll draw the characters, or better yet, just don’t include the characters at all. Do flowers and crowns and weapons. Anything would have been preferable to using stock images and manipulating them to the outer reaches of space and back.
Two aspects I think indie authors sometimes overlook—or straight up dismiss—is how important having a good cover and a good editor are for the success of a book. The first one because, clearly, the cover is the thing that provides the first impression for potential readers. The thing about judging books by their covers is a cliche for a reason. And the second, because, at least for me, reading a piece of work that’s properly edited shows attention to detail and care. Plain and simple. Editing—and it’s younger cousin proof-reading—can be the difference between a great story being torture to read, or a average story turning into a good book.
This trilogy did just okay on both of the previously mentioned aspects. At first glance, and on their own, the covers are ok, but look ridiculous—particularly the middle one—when observed more closely or all together. And the books certainly could have done with more thorough proofreading and editing—there were grammar and spelling mistakes, missing dialogue quotes and misused punctuation all around.
In any case, I kinda fucked up a little, too, in my own way: I found this trilogy sifting through a bookfinder site, where you can filter through a bunch of tags related to genres, tropes, type of relationship, personality traits of the main characters, etc—a mood-reader’s ultimate dream. The tags I’d selected had been “M-F”, “fantasy”, “cruel hero” and “reverse harem” but, in the end, it turned out this trilogy actually only featured two out of those four, three if you squinted.
Spoiler alert: THIS TRILOGY IS NOT REVERSE HAREM!!!!! Which I would have known if I’d read the full blurb for the first book on Goodreads, but apparently, I only read half-way through, was sold and jumped right in LOL
Also, calling this fantasy is a bit of a stretch. I’d say the setting was closer to dystopia: a post-war world, divided into 50 monarchies, where things like cars, make-up and paper were luxury items only afforded by the rich and powerful, while the rest of society lived fairly oppressed.
Since this’ll be a series review, there’ll be some spoilers. But the MAJOR ones I’ll hide away, so fear not.
If I’m being honest, I think the initial idea that spawned the first book, Princess Ballot, died somewhere between the end of it and the inception of the second one, Playboy Princes. Binging these books, I kinda got the feeling that some ideas were spur of the moment rather than things that’d been in the plans since the very beginning: we’d get some vague hints in one direction one book, only for the story to take a completely different route in the next one.
Like, book one introduced four different guys—one boyfriend, two friends and a sworn enemy—and not only were they all royals, they were each the crown heirs to their respective kingdoms. I should have known the reverse harem trope would be impossible right then and there: there was absolutely no way all of these guys could get with the same girl when they each were expected to someday govern their specific territories and carry on the family line through heirs of their own.
By book two, we’d already dropped one of the guys as a love interest and decided to let another stay firmly in the friend-zone, so already things were much more manageable.
Strangely, though, to the very end this never turned into a full-fledged menage. The threesome was never realized. Violet ended up monogamously dating two guys and solely engaging with each on a one-on-one basis, which, admittedly, was super unexpected.
In any case, aside from the romance aspect, the other two major plot points were a secret fight club—featuring costumes and secret identities—and a rebellion to topple the monarchies—because of course.
The fight club was the vehicle to establish an old facet of Violet’s life: since her childhood, she’d been trained in hand-to-hand and weapon combat. Why? For spoilery plot reasons. But it also doubled as the entry point for introducing the rebellious faction, since they happened to be the ones organizing these violence drenched soirees.
In all honesty, when the rebellion suddenly became a huge plot point, it fully felt like it was coming out of nowhere. Violet, our sole POV, had been barely aware there even was such a thing as a resistance, so when she was abruptly trapped in their camp as their prisoner, it was surprising to say the least. Then came a few other revelations that were sudden and unforeseen, or more precisely, one in particular:❌the mastermind behind the “bad” resistance faction was no other than Violet’s old sensei, the man who’d shaped and trained her as kid, who also turned out to be a groomer and pedo.❌
In my opinion, Poison Throne, the third and last book of the series, were the rebel shenanigans happened, was the weakest book of the trilogy. I didn’t care for the “let’s overthrow the monarchy” plot—it was, frankly, unoriginal—but also, the ending to the whole series felt like a bit of a cope-out:❌Alex, who’d been a major character in Princess Ballot and the villain of Playboy Princes simply faded into the background; the rebellion was easily quelled by passing a law that allowed the “peasants” a bit of power in the day-to-day decisions of the monarchies; and Violet had a hysterectomy, effectively ducking out of any conflict that would have arisen of her having to provide blood-heirs to her two crown prince boyfriends. Also, for how arranged marriages (to assure the continuance of the royal bloodlines in a world with alarmingly dropping birth rates) had been a big deal in previous books, now apparently the crown heirs of the two most powerful kingdoms in the world suddenly didn’t give two fucks about it anymore. Queens and heirs? Who even cares about that. ❌
Overall, this trilogy was a quick read and entertaining enough, but it had the potential to be so much better. I would have liked to see a stronger plot—for big chunks of each book it felt like nothing happened and the story wasn’t progressing anywhere—with more deeply explored characters and themes: as much as I found Jordan to be adorable and super sweet, his character was so flat. There was little else to him aside from being the nice guy. And the little mentions of family drama other characters had to grapple with could have been used to make them more nuanced and give them more dimension and layers.
Not to mention how, for a story supposed to have been taking place in a college-type setting, the high school drama vibes were way, way, way too high. There was excessive swearing and fully out of control libidos, and it made everything feel a little shallow, cheap and too adolescent, basically. Still, if you’re looking for a bit of a guilty pleasure read, or something not too deep with a good dose of melodrama, perhaps you’ll enjoy this trilogy. All in all, I did.
What should I read next?
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