Celebrity and royalty come together in Tracey Livesay's steamy romance novel American Royalty, which draws inspiration from the love story of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan Markle without once feeling derivative in doing so.
Dani has spent years building a hip hop career as Duchess, known internationally not only for her talent, but for her seductive dance moves and scant clothing. The latter, though, are dictated by the men who manage her career, not her. In need of space to think about the future of her career, she leaps at the invitation to perform at a royal concert in England in memory of the queen's late husband. What she doesn't expect to find there is Prince Jameson, who looks to Dani "like a sex god trying to masquerade as a mortal professor." Jameson and Dani spend more and more time together, until the undeniable attraction between them becomes impossible to ignore. What starts off as a hot fling gets increasingly more serious as the two develop feelings for each other--feelings they are desperate to keep secret from the royal family and, perhaps more importantly, the press, which has the potential to ruin them both.
This layering of the power of media attention to shape the lives of those it focuses on shifts American Royalty into something larger than the story of these two unlikely lovers, exploring family and duty, privilege and race, and the potential harm caused by losing control of one's own story. Readers will find it impossible not to root for a happy ending. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer