So stop me if you have heard this before. A young lady is suddenly cast aside when her father has a true heir, she spends her time with the other bastards/outcasts, they are free to roam around and have fun, a nerdy one is love with the girl but the girl loves the strong and handsome one. Then one day a Princess from the neighboring kingdom sits with the bastards and all of a sudden they are thrust into intrigue, rebellion, and treachery.

“Princess Lyriana came to Castle Waverly two months after I turned sixteen.”

That is the plot of the new book, Royal Bastards by Andrew Shvarts. We follow Tilla and her friends as they try to save their own kingdom and the life of their new friend Princess Lyriana from the neighboring kingdom after a bloody coup leaves her father dead.

The book is decent, it is just that it feels like we have trodden down this path many times in other books. It does not feel like any new ground has been trodden on to make this feel special or original. The characters feel very one dimensional, and they quickly fall into their caricatures.

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