American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy #1) by Sierra Simone

American Queen (Sierra Simone)

SUMMARY

It starts with a stolen kiss under an English sky, and it ends with a walk down the aisle. It starts with the President sending his best friend to woo me on his behalf, and it ends with my heart split in two. It starts with buried secrets and dangerous desires…and ends with the three of us bound together with a hateful love sharper than any barbed wire.

My name is Greer Galloway, and I serve at the pleasure of the President of the United States.

This is the story of an American Queen.

MY REVIEW

Our story begins with a warning. A warning that it was given to a seven years old girl by a wizard.

“Keep your kisses to yourself when the time comes”.

Greer is the granddaughter of a former Vice President. She comes from a very important family in politics.
She is naturally observant, naturally curious, and naturally ready to read deeply into small comments or gestures, so Grandpa Leo was using her as his little spy when she was a kid.
Greer used to mingle in the adult world in balls, events and social gatherings that her grandfather was taking her. Whatever she heard, she told to her grandfather afterwards. And usually she had a lot to tell, because nobody was paying attention to a pretty child...

...Until one of these nights she met Mr. Merlin Rhys and he noticed her and he scared her and she tried to avoid him for many years afterwards – not very successfully. Merlin told her that she was not supposed to kiss anyone. EVER! If she kissed anyone, people would get hurt.

Greer kissed only two men in her life, because she could not stop it from happening. These two men where exactly the ones she should NEVER kiss.

The kisses did not happen at the same time.

She kissed Ash, when she was sixteen, vulnerable and sad after an accident that involved broken glass and blood.

“You’ll cut yourself if you’re not careful”

And Merlin knew about the kiss, straight away. She could see the disapproval on his face.

She kissed Embry when she was twenty, vulnerable and brokenhearted after an unwanted meeting and a punch from reality.

For the third time tonight, I walked right into another person.
“Fuck,” I swore, already swerving to push past him and reach the door.
“My favorite word,” said a smoothly pleasant voice, and that voice was hypnotic in its charm.

And Merlin knew about the kiss, before it happened. He warned her before she met Embry.

Ash and Embry used to be soldiers and to fight together deep in the mountains of Carpathia. Ash saved Embry. They became heroes, best friends, more than friends and later on the President and the Vice President of USA. The youngest ones ever.

10 years after that first kiss, President Ash asks his best friend Embry to bring Greer to him.

Ash doesn’t know Greer slept with Embry.
Greer doesn’t know Ash used to sleep with Embry.
Embry knows everything and he chooses to be silent and alone.

It is time for Greer to meet again with the only man she has ever had sex, the two men she has ever kissed and the only two men she has ever had feelings for.

Before a week finishes, everything will be a mess.

“Yes, of course,” I tell him. “I’ll go anywhere you want me to.”

I loved the fact that the story has borrowed elements from Arthur’s tale and Camelot. There is wizard Merlin and there is Morgan. There is a true king, his queen and his best friend.

The story is fascinating. I could not stop reading. I made the mistake of starting it during the afternoon and I could not sleep that night, until I finished the book. I was glued to it, when I read this perfect prologue.

If you haven’t read any MMF book ever, you will need to know that this book is really heavy in erotic scenes between Greer, Ash and Embry –especially towards the end. They are in love and burning for each other and this fact is very strong throughout the book. The three of them are possessive and jealous of other people.

With the exception of Embry who used to be a bit of a manwhore, Ash has always been faithful and monogamous and Greer is hardly a man-eater being 26 years old and having sexual experiences with only two men in her whole life.
Greer is also the open-minded person who accepts easily this messed up situation and orchestrates their final arrangement with the approval of Ash. Or I suppose it looks like that. We don’t really see Ash’s and Embry’s POV in this book.

The fairy tale, gone up in flames.
I am gone up in flames too…