Red as Royal Blood / Elizabeth Hart / Book Review

RED AS ROYAL BLOOD

Ruby has spent her whole life as a palace maid, and that's how she likes it. It's a good life for an orphan like her. But when the king dies, everything changes.

Because for some reason, the king has named her his successor. Not his heir apparent. Not any of his living children. Her.

Ruby doesn't know how to be a queen. She doesn't know how to lead a nation, especially not one as volatile as this. And she is starting to feel like she's been set up for failure... especially when she stumbles across evidence that the king was murdered. And his murderers might have their eyes on her next.

THOUGHTS

This book really gives nothing. Absolutely nothing. Is it court fantasy? No, it isn't. There's no magic. There's no real sense that it is set in a secondary world. There's... nothing. So is it historical, then? Absolutely not. It's just vaguely royal. It's non-historical, non-fantastical, non-sensical nonsense. And not in a fun way.

PROS

Younger Voices	There aren't a lot of books that make it to the YA shelves these days written with the younger end of the age bracken in mind. In fact, with the number of "starting college" stories I've read in YA this year, the age bracket just keeps pushing higher and higher. So reading a book that feels like it would be a good fit for that 12-14 age range is nice.
Murder Mystery	As much as I didn't like the execution of this book, it has a solid backbone in the murder mystery it presents. It's fun to follow along with this investigation. It's fun to watch all the pieces slotting into their places. It's fun.
Quick & Easy Read	There's something to be said about a popcorn read. While I usually like to dig deep into whatever I'm reading, we don't always want or need something like that. Something quick and light is nice to come across. And in this case, even though I didn't enjoy reading this book, I didn't find it nearly as painful to read as a more involved book would have been. So it all balances out.

CONS

As much as I think the writing and the plotting (and the character voice) suit that younger audience mentioned above, we just love to push the boundaries in YA these days. Unexpectedly intimate moments (including questions about birth control) would have scandalized me and my late-middle-school peers had we been reading this back in the day. This book might not be the most mature content YA has to offer, but it does push into a certain level of middle-school risqué that should be noted. It's not for every YA reader, reading level aside.	Mature Audiences
This book isn't sure what it wants to be. Is it historical fiction? Is it royal fantasy? Is is romance? The only thing it does somewhat decently is the murder mystery, and even that's not that well executed. If you're looking for a book that is something, well, you won't be getting that here.	Giving Nothing
There are some things that peeve me, like historical women complaining about corsets in a very not-historical way. Would there have been complaints about corsets? Absolutely. Women complain about bras now, after all. But the whining, the sense of "restriction," almost always feels very modern in execution, not at all of whatever historical age a book is set in (the particular historical moment being unclear in this particular book, of course). It's little peeves like that which throw me out of a story, and in a book where I have absolutely no idea what we're even meant to be doing, world-building-wise, it definitely doesn't help. If you're wanting your foothold to happen in historical references, you won't be getting that here. Little peeves aside, there's no research been done in this book for how a royal household might be set up or what a life of service (or even the life of an orphan) might look like at whatever random time this book is meant to be set. And there's no work done to create a new world, an a-historical fantasy realm of the author's own imagination ("fantasy" here being used only to describe it as other-than-reality; no magic necessary). There's no worldbuilding at all happening in this book. Everything just feels so random. And that... isn't a good book.	Nonsense

Rating

⭐⭐⭐
3/10

Fans of Sherwood Smith's Court Duel might like the murderous scheming in this royal establishment. Those who enjoyed The Queen's Assassin by Melissa de la Cruz will like this laidback royal mystery.

Details Publisher: HarperCollins Date: November 18, 2025 Series: N/A Add to Goodreads Buy it HERE

Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.