Majesty plot summary

Beatrice Washington is America’s first queen, but she’s never felt less in control of her life. Princess Samantha is trying to juggle her new position as heir to the throne with her old party girl image. Nina Gonzales is nursing a broken heart far away from the royal family, but has too many ties to escape completely. And Daphne Deighton is still scheming, desperate to see out her plan to get back together with Prince Jefferson. These four women are about to have to confront what they want, or what they think they want, and what they’re really prepared to do to achieve it.

My thoughts on Majesty

First and foremost, Majesty is the sequel to American Royals, which I have reviewed previously. This review won’t have Majesty spoilers, but I’d advise you steer clear if book one is on your to-be-read list. You have been warned!

Majesty, by Katharine McGee, completes the American Royals duology. Set in an alternative timeline of sorts where America has a monarchy, Beatrice has just become America’s very first queen. She’s engaged to Teddy, despite being in love with her personal guard, Connor. This would be complicated enough, but Beatrice’s younger sister Samantha has feelings for Teddy. And she’s furious that Beatrice is apparently insisting on marrying him. Nina, Sam’s best friend, has just broken up with Prince Jefferson, Sam and Beatrice’s brother. She’s trying to get some distance from the glitz and media glare that comes with associating with the royals. And Daphne… oh, Daphne… Daphne is still obsessed with getting back together with Jefferson, despite being blatantly in love with his best friend, Ethan.

It’s a mess, in short! American Royals set up a whole tangle of feelings and relationships. Although there is a little time between the end of American Royals and the start of Majesty, it’s only a matter of weeks. The time gives the characters a moment to breathe after the death of the King, but isn’t long enough for any of the dynamics to change. So, we’re pretty much picking up where we left off.

You get a different look at some of the characters in Majesty

The story is told from the same four perspectives as American Royals was: Sam, Beatrice, Nina and Daphne. But the balance of character involvement in the plot is different. We see less of Jefferson than we did before, but more of Ethan. It was fun to get more insight into the Prince’s best friend. I particularly liked getting a little look into what drew those two together as friends, and I’d have been happy to take an even deeper dive into that.

Daphne is still as delightfully unscrupulous as ever, which I confess to enjoying. Majesty gives us a little more of a view into her life beyond prince-chasing. Her mother seemed almost cartoonishly evil in the scenes we had with her, which I didn’t enjoy quite as much; I like my villains with a little nuance. But it was still fun to see Daphne in some new contexts.

We saw a lot more of Teddy, and we saw him in a more interesting light in my opinion. In American Royals, we saw Teddy mostly through Samantha’s chapters as an unattainable goal. And less frequently through Beatrice’s chapters as the barrier to what (or who) she really wanted. While Samantha still thought about him in Majesty, pretty much all of Teddy’s page-time in this book came in Beatrice’s chapters, and I enjoyed learning more about him that way.

The story sets out to surprise

Apparently the author said in her Instagram story that she wanted Majesty not to be predictable, and I think she largely managed that. I don’t always think that’s a good thing, but there were definitely moments where it was a strength.

Sometimes I think the way the author went about being unpredictable was just completely undoing character or plot development from the first book. I thought there were moments where I think this resulted in something interesting, but there were also elements of the book that annoyed me as a result. I understand the desire to shake things up in a sequel, and I’m not opposed to it in principle. But if you set up a situation with massive narrative weight and then neglect to pay it off, apparently for the sake of surprising your audience, that feels like a cheap move. On balance, there was more interesting than irritating in my opinion, but depending on the storylines you were most invested in from American Royals you might feel differently.

I think the author did a good job of developing the new character dynamics that she wanted to explore, so even when I felt like the choice had been made in service of an unpredictable plot, I thought it was pretty well executed. And ultimately I can’t be too annoyed about it, because one of my favourite elements of the book was something that (arguably) came out of left field after book one.

The book makes an effort to address some important ideas

Both misogyny and racism are addressed to a degree within the story. Beatrice has to cope with the expectations on her, including the expectation of failure from some, as the first female ruler of the country. In the first book there was some interesting commentary on the particular standards she was held to, and I think those same threads are woven through some of the struggles she faces in Majesty.

Some of the commentary on racism comes from Nina, who’s Latina. She dealt with some deeply unpleasant backlash for her relationship with Prince Jefferson in American Royals. Some comes from the introduction of Marshall, a Black character from an aristocratic family. Marshall’s storyline in the book isn’t based around the racism he has to deal with, but the narrative doesn’t shy away from it either. I think it made an important point about the reality of life as a Black person in the public eye, without making Marshall’s whole character or arc about that.

In summary…

My biggest complaint is probably that this is supposed to be the last book, which feels… odd. The ending definitely feels primed for a third book. Not that things are left completely up in the air, but there’s plenty that isn’t fully tied off. If you’ve read book one, it’s still worth going in I think. I’d say it gives you marginally more resolution to the storylines than American Royals. But it’s a close thing. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for a book three that really wraps things up.

Even so, Majesty is a strong follow-up to a book I enjoyed quite a lot. I didn’t love everything in it, but I think the author did good work setting things up to make sense. I just wish there had been more payoff for some of the storylines that were set up in book one. Or in book two, for that matter. If you enjoyed American Royals, the characters and writing are likely to draw you in just as much this time around, and I think both books are a solid bet for fans of YA fiction.