Aliyah Giorgia Juliet Panimiro was never meant to be queen. It’s not in her blood. Yet, after a family tragedy, the duty to wear the crown was thrust upon her. Now, she spends her time alone, dreaming of a day she won’t have to attend balls with the dreaded goal of finding a husband, as though she’s living in a doomed fairytale and not the twenty-first century. Aliyah knows the pressure to marry is high, but is it too much to ask to fall in love first?

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Elliot despises the royal family and everything they stand for. So, he’s not quite sure how he ended up working for them this summer. There’s nothing he wants from Galineria Castle apart from a glowing recommendation and to make his family proud. He has no intention of leaving with anything else. And then he meets a girl under the plum tree, and he wonders how bad it would be if, just this once, he talked to her…