Royal Heirs Academy by Lindsey Duga
Royal Heirs Academy by Lindsey Duga is a highly entertaining and engaging YA fraternity/sororiety campus novel that takes the reader into the grubby world of a finishing school for the world's ultra rich and powerful elite. After being enmeshed in the battles and intrigues of four teenagers who must navigate the world of the elite finishing school (Almus Terra Academy) and who are pitted against each other to be the next successor of the Kingdom of Ashland, the reader is left with a bad taste in the mouth when it comes to contemplating the back room power games and intrigues that go on in the real world of power politics on a world scale.
King Leander Eldana of Ashland has organised for his heirs to be brought up out of the public eye. Each of the first four chapters of the novel introduce the reader to the four contenders for inheritance. Alaric has grown up surviving with his fists in the streets of Dublin; a supposed orphan in government care. Emmeline, has grown up, extremely wealthy but unloved in the care of body guards and paid companions whose sole purpose was to train her for successful entrance to Almus Terra Academy. Titus had always known that he would inherit the crown and his parents have actively trained him for it. Sadie, on the otherhand, is a commoner, a citizen of Ashland and the highly intelligent winner of a scholarship.
Almus Terra Academy is the setting for Royal Heirs Academy. Duga has modelled Almus Terra Academy on a real finishing school for the children of royalty and the global elite (UWC of the Atlantic) which is located at the 12th century St. Donat's Castle in Glamorgan, South Wales. Being a campus novel, set in surroundings of medieval splendour and being concerned with aspiration, intrigue and rivalry, Royal Heirs Academy, shares similarities with the Harry Potter series set in the fictional Hogwart Castle and other campus novels including The secret history by Donna Tart set in the fictional, elite Hampden College in Vermont and The princess diaries series by Meg Cabot set in the fictional Einstein High School in New York City. Royal Heirs Academy is set very much in contemporary times with current world issues being very much the concern of the students.
It is uncertain what King Leander is looking for in his heir. All four young people have different strengths and frailties. Some are more likeable than others; some are more manipulative than others. Certainly the characters are well rounded, built in relation to each other and through their actions, mirroring what is right and wrong with society and politics. Issues like living with chronic illness and race representation are subtly nuanced. The reader becomes invested in each of the characters and expectant of certain outcomes. Is this going to be a rags-to-riches story? Will King Leander be more interested in an heir who can nastily manipulate and play underhand terrible games, or in one who has the common people behind them? Will the crown go to a commoner or one born and bred to be a successor? The answer is a surprise. There is a twist and then another.
Royal Heirs Academy is a wild ride - unputdownable! It is a great piece of escapism to read about an exclusive campus which is beyond the reach of ordinary people-a school that is set apart to cater for the world's future leaders so that they can network and train for leadership of multinational companies and government in the contemporary world. The alliances, betrayals, romances, secrets and drama make for riveting reading.
Themes: Royalty, Politics, Succession, Romance, Wealth, Entitlement, Campus life.
Wendy Jeffrey