My Fan Playlist for Royal Heirs Academy
In many ways, the experience of reading Royal Heirs Academy feels like bingeing multiple seasons of Gossip Girl or Elite in a single sitting. As a connoisseur of that genre, I mean that as the highest of compliments. At any given moment, I yearn to feel the rush of a season finale cliffhanger complete with big damn kisses, epic betrayals, and jaw-dropping reveals, allsoundtracked to a song that I will subsequently listen to enough times to rewire my brain chemistry. That’s exactly what Royal Heirs Academy delivers. To appropriately set your reading mood, here’s a playlist filled with some stone-cold certified CW and CW-adjacent (looking at you Skam) classics, a peppering of 90s teen movie tunes, as well as some current faves that, well,just felt right. Happy reading and listening!
“Gossip Girl meets Katharine McGee’s American Royals” (SLJ) in this story filled with “romantic tension, royal drama, and family secrets” (Kristy Boyce), where four teens living in a glamorous boarding school must compete to inherit a European kingdom.
For fifty years, King Leander Eldana has ruled Ashland without naming an heir to the crown. After sending away his grandchildren to be raised out of the public eye, it’s finally time to secure his nation’s future by appointing one definitive heir. The best way to appraise his successor? In the halls of Almus Terra Academy, a boarding school notorious for breeding the world’s next generation of leaders—and liars.
Titus Eldana has always known he’d inherit Ashland’s future. Now he must prove he has what it takes. Alaric Eldana was not raised with a silver spoon. His secondhand clothes might not be fit for a king, but he knows how to rule: with his fist. Emmeline Eldana only wants to please her neglectful parents. If that means securing the crown, she won’t hesitate to destroy anyone in her way. Sadie Aurelia has no idea why she’s been given a chance to bring new blood to the throne. With nothing left to lose back home, she’s ready to take it.
Filled with competition, secret alliances, enemies-to-lovers romance, and cunning revenge, Royal Heirs Academy is a breathless, entertaining read set in modern-day. This gossip-filled school for the global elite is inspired by UWC of the Atlantic, which Vanity Fair has described as “Hippie Hogwarts.”
It’s been eight months since King Leander named Ashland’s heir apparent and a new year is about to begin at Almus Terra Academy…
Sadie is trapped in a fake dating scheme with one prince, while the other is dead set on winning her heart. Titus is desperate to make things right with the girl he wronged, but his own ambitions and secrets stand in his way. Emmeline has lost her friends, her dreams, and her family. For the first time in her life, she’s not sure she has what it takes to win them all back. Alaric goes down dark paths to strike against his traitorous father, but his quest for revenge will only keep him apart from the girl he loves.
When the Ashland heirs learn that the school and the country they’ve come to love are in danger, can they put their egos aside long enough to make a difference? Or will their rivalries cost them everything?
Complete with enemies-to-lovers romance, political intrigue, and legendary betrayals, this is the dramatic conclusion to the saga begun in Royal Heirs Academy.