Stars: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I LOVE Halloween and when I unwrapped this book, the front cover made me want to dive right in for a spooky read!

Robbie is heir to the Sinistevils who are the most evil dynasty in the world. But he just knows he won’t be any good at taking over from his wickedly bad predecessors because he’s just too hopelessly nice. When his family realise, his life is going to get really complicated – can he prove that he can still rule despite his differences?

I absolutely loved everything about this book. The family dynamics, the themes of friendship and accepting differences and, of course, being kind! Robbie is such an endearing character and one I thoroughly enjoyed reading about. His story is one the reader can take so much from and I can’t wait to share it with my class!

To share more about how this book came to be, Chloë Perrin has written a guest blog post explaining her writing routine and how this idea sparked into being.

I’m going to drop a massive bombshell here, one that will definitely be a shock to all my fellow authors.

Writing is not my full-time job.

I know, wild right? In fact, I don’t even spend half my day writing! Pretty pathetic for an author. 

When making my first attempts at being a “serious writer”, I was convinced that a proper writing routine was all that kept me from being propelled to publication. I saw one particular piece of writing advice pop up over and over, usually by people who were full time writers, expressing that the only way to take your writing seriously was to give it the time you’d give a full-time job: start writing at nine, draft through the day and pack up shop at five pm. Simple.

While scribbling early drafts of His Royal Hopeless, I was working part-time at a health food shop (ask me about the many properties of matcha, I dare you) while also studying for university. It dawned on me fairly quickly that writing nine-to-five was not going to be a viable option for me. That’s when I developed my “routine”.

To put it bluntly, I write when I can and where I can. A schedule? Never heard of ‘em.

When starting His Royal Hopeless I didn’t even have a desk. Most of protagonist Robbie’s hapless adventuring was produced in a bedsit while hunched over my ailing laptop which was precariously balanced on my knees (my back is still thanking me for that).

Now, I’ve at least graduated to a desk. It’s rickety because it was cheap and I put it together myself, but I think that gives it character. It makes me seasick when I write but I keep a bin by my feet so it’s fine.

A quiet room, however? I live in the city with a bunch of brilliant housemates who are happily living their non-silent lives, while the people on the street below like to loudly share their music tastes with me all. Day. Long.

But, like every author who’s in the same boat, I’ve adapted! Paper scraps are my best friends. Dialogue always comes to me first, and if a particularly vitriolic snap from HRH’s Queen Sinistevil wandered into my brain at work I simply scrawled it onto the nearest receipt and hid it under the till when my boss came around (I’m kidding, she’s the best). And as for a quiet room, I’ve invested in ear plugs, which is about the best I can do aside from screaming “TURN IT DOWN, DARN KIDS” from my window.

And that’s my writing routine! It’s rough and inconvenient, but an entire book got written that way. Besides, all we can really do as writers is work with what we have.

HIS ROYAL HOPELESS by Chloë Perrin is out now in paperback (£6.99, Chicken House)

Follow Chloë on Instagram @chloeperrin_author and Twitter @ChloePerrinUK

If you like the sound of this book, buy it here.

Emily x

📚 Book gifted by publisher.