Royally Not Ready by Meghan Quinn Part 1

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
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Anyway, on to today's episode.
But he says something like, even if you go back to Miami, you're still mine and she's
like always.
And I was like, it's been 10 days.
Y'all need to like fucking chill, man.

(00:50):
Welcome to Your Saved Space, the podcast your partner, friends, parents, whoever thinks
is dirty.
Don't have time to read books, want to understand the jokes and the tics-hacks, we got you
on.
We're the Spice Traders and we deal in spicy books.
I'm Katie and I need it to make sense.
I'm Liz and I'm hypercritical.
As always, we start every episode with three things.
The first is a generic trigger warning.
You can find specific triggers for this book in our show notes, so please check those out.

(01:15):
Also we do use foul language and talk a lot about sex.
If you have sensitivity to any of this, please give this episode a skip.
Secondly, we talk about books, the whole book, nothing but the books that helped me
goddess.
If you plan to read this book and don't want something spoiled right now, don't listen
to this episode.
Lastly, we acknowledge that a good book can hit you at the wrong time.
The views expressed in our discussion are our opinion and we absolutely don't want to

(01:37):
diminish the work and the talent of the authors in our community.
That said, we have some notes.
So Liz, what are we talking about today?
Today we're talking about Royally Not Ready by Megan Quinn.

(01:59):
This was published in 2022 and it is the first in an ongoing series, currently with two out.
I was trying to see if it was just a duology, but I couldn't tell.
This book is 438 pages long and that's a longie.
Now the cover, y'all.
The cover I've been seeing is the one that comes up on my Kindle app and it's this dark

(02:21):
blue background that's very cartoonish and there's this heart in smoke coming out of
the back of a plane, pretty basic travel-y.
And then this little country with a flag in it.
What bothered me first, I have a couple notes on this.
The first thing that bothered me is every time, okay, you know when you open your Kindle,
it flashes the cover, but it doesn't stay on the cover.

(02:41):
It just kind of shows it really briefly when you open it.
Yeah, that's what mine does.
This country, not when you look at the cover closely, but every time it flashes, it looks
like Australia to me and it bugs me.
Yeah, I can see that.
You can definitely see that.
The second thing that I hate is I was looking up the cover to talk about it and there's
another cover that seems to be more common.

(03:04):
That's that exact thing I just described, but then there's a dude in a white chair,
like he's going to give an interview, just like superimposed on this weird cartoony background,
like a photograph of a whole dude.
I, it comes up, it's the second result on Amazon images, excuse me, on Google images.

(03:27):
I thought it was going to be like a TikTok where you can like cap cut the thing in front
of it.
No, no, that's the cover.
Why?
Okay, yeah, so I, you know how I feel about real people on the covers of books, but this
person in particular, one, that is not how I picture Keller.
I assume that's supposed to be Keller.
It's got to be.

(03:47):
He's just really hot.
Oh God.
Ew.
But there's also something wild going on with his hand, right?
Cause it's like touching his chin.
Yeah, and his hand is bigger than his head.
That's the thing.
It's ginormous.
And I don't know why it's kind of like the, like it gives the same feeling as the old
pictures that you see of like Abraham Lincoln, where his hands are fucking huge because

(04:09):
like those are the things that move.
Yes.
It's not the appropriate size.
I think it's just weird.
And it's just like his eyes are kind of closed.
He's almost on like a thinker pose, but not quite.
Yeah.
Also, I've just discovered this is that there's an illustrated collection of this book.
Yeah.

(04:29):
I hate every, every single thing about this.
Yeah.
It's a terrible cover.
Like, oh, like we pick our books based on things that we want to read, but also like
a lot of Tik Tok and Instagram.
And if I had seen either one of these covers, especially the one with Keller on it, I would
have eaten this book immediately.
Yeah.

(04:50):
Okay.
The illustrated version is not good either.
It's like high school level art.
Yeah.
I'm seeing that.
And it's, and it's like weird pencil sketches.
Like, yeah.
Like I'm looking at this one that just has her, I wish I could make this picture bigger.
They're terrible.

(05:10):
It's terrible.
The proportions are weird.
Sometimes she's a blonde, sometimes she's a brunette.
It's hard to know.
Also I could not tell you what she looks like.
Okay.
And so I couldn't tell you what Keller looks like actually, because I skipped over his
brief description in the first chapter.

(05:30):
And so I, I don't got it.
I don't, I don't really think we get much.
We get that he has cleavage and big muscles and tattoos.
Yeah.
That's it.
I only know what color her eyes are.
I couldn't tell you anything else about either of them.
Well, okay.
So we'll get there when we get there, but she's got white blonde hair.
Oh.
Yeah.
Apparently it runs with the family.

(05:53):
That makes a sense.
That makes a sense.
That makes sense.
That makes a sense.
So I was actually picturing Keller kind of like Thor.
And I think it's just because she kept calling him a Viking.
Well, and Timmy Tuna refers to him as Thor.
So I was like, okay, Thorish.
Yeah.
So I kind of pictured him having long hair and like pulled back in like a ponytail, like
a low pony.

(06:13):
Yeah.
A low pony situation.
Yeah.
Uh, not this like millionaire businessman on this cover.
So grinch.
All right.
So let's get into it.
Katie, take it away.
Oh, Jesus.
Okay.
Um, so she is on Kindle Unlimited.
Amazing.

(06:34):
We love that.
Thank God.
Thank God.
Sorry.
Um, this book is a longie.
So we're going to split it into two parts, about 200 pages each.
So part one will cover chapters one through 13, which I think brings us to just over 50%.
It's like 52%.
And then part two will cover chapters 14 onward.

(06:55):
So let's just get into it.
Um, we'll start off by saying that this book is told from the first person point of view
from both Keller, our male main character and Lily, our female main character.
And we kind of switch back and forth between the two of them.
So in the prologue, we start with the perspective of Keller and we quickly learn that he is
the secretary to a king who is in failing health.

(07:17):
This king, King Theodore summons Keller to his rooms to talk business.
He tells Keller that he wants him to find his American granddaughter and says that
without her, they are jeopardizing their entire country because of a foreign power
named Arkham.
This is because all of the rest of King Theo's kids are not fit to take the throne after
him for various reasons, which we'll get into later.

(07:40):
The King also tells Keller that he needs him to train her to be ready to take over the
country.
I can't read the word Arkham and not think about Batman.
Same.
Girl, same.
Why are we, why are we naming anything Arkham?
It's like naming something Middle Earth.
Like I need you to come up with a new name.
Yeah.
I'm fine with having kind of a fictional small island, like the equivalent of being an heir

(08:08):
to the throne of like Andorra or something fine.
Genovia.
The princess of Genovia.
Yeah.
We should say that this is just princess Diaries with Smudd, which like, come on.
That's all this quick.
Yeah.
But when they start bringing in the political thing of like Arkham taking over, I'm like,
is this like when two Chihuahuas get in a fight or are we just redrawing the entire map

(08:32):
of Europe here?
Yeah.
I just, if you're going to, this book is, it doesn't ask a lot of its readers.
I don't need the political intrigue.
Like, I don't.
I really don't.
It was enough to be like, we don't have any other heirs.
You're the last heir.
And if like you don't, then this line doesn't continue.

(08:53):
Like I don't need to know about like the big baddie Arkham that's like waiting in the wings.
Right.
Or just say that like we have an agreement that Great Britain will take over because
we're right there.
Yeah.
Great.
But we don't want that because we'll be assimilated.
Cool.
That's all I need.
Yeah.
That'd be, that'd be fine.
That'd be fine.
I also want to point out that the narration in this I don't super like.

(09:13):
So it's, um, it starts heavy in this prologue and then it kind of fades out.
It does that thing where it breaks the fourth wall where like Keller will talk directly
to the reader and I just never really like that.
And it kind of goes away where it turns more to like him talking to himself or just like
having his sides.
But the prologue is like, and I got to tell you blah, blah, blah.

(09:35):
And I'm like, you don't have to tell me anything.
I'm, I'm reading this book.
Yeah.
It starts out really folksy and I, that rubbed me the wrong way too, but I was so distracted
by the fact that the king is asking his personal secretary to do all of this shit that I was
like, I can only focus on one thing at a time to be horrified by.
Also is he dying or does he just have like pneumonia?

(09:58):
Cause I can't tell how sick he is.
Okay.
And that comes up later.
It's not giving anything away, but like part of the reason that King Theo says that he
doesn't want to see Lily when she finally gets there is he doesn't want her to see him
like sick.
I'm like, oh boy, do you think you're like getting out of this alive?
Cause I think you'd be the only one.

(10:18):
Right.
But then, but then, cause I was watching out for the continuity of this, it is kind of
like his cough gets better.
So I'm like, are you getting better?
Are you dying or not?
Is she going to take the throne tomorrow or not?
Also, okay.
If I just, this is a question that I have for this entire book and I don't know if we

(10:40):
get it answered because I haven't finished the book or not, or I haven't finished the
book yet, but if Theo can have a female heir, why can't the queen take over?
Okay.
I had that question too because we'll get into the family tree here pretty quickly,

(11:01):
but his firstborn is a girl and was first in line for the throne.
So I'm like, okay, cool.
So this wasn't like the male heir thing, but yeah, why?
What's her name?
Katia?
Something like that.
Why would she not be the next one?
At least until Lily's like more ready.
There's just such an artificial urgency put on this whole thing.

(11:25):
They're like two months.
You're going to be ready to go in two months.
I'm like, you're not.
You're going to take this girl who grew up in Miami and train her how to be the regent
of a whole country she's never heard of in two months.
Okay.
Have fun with that.
Like, okay.
There's no way.
There's no way.
Good luck.

(11:46):
Yeah.
So as you may have guessed, this book doesn't ask a lot intellectually of its readers.
And I just, maybe it's the headspace that I'm in right now or whatever.
I'm just having a lot, like a hard time relating to any of the characters.
So if it sounds like I chose violence with this book, I apologize.

(12:06):
I'm having a great time.
I want to be clear.
It's fun to read.
It is not a good book.
Exactly.
It's very, it's similar to what we said about killer beauty.
Like it's, it's a great time.
I'm having fun.
I want to know what happens.
I'm not going to sing its praises.
I might recommend it because it's entertaining.
Correct.
But it's not good.

(12:28):
Correct.
So chapter one starts with Lily now and Lily is sitting on a truck in Miami Beach that
sells bikinis and somehow she is also hosting a wet t-shirt contest.
I think there's like a water gun on the truck.
I didn't ask any questions.
I asked far too many questions of this book and I have left wanting so.

(12:54):
Anyway, she's doing this with the assistance of her friend and coworker, Timmy Tuna.
She describes her truck as quote, the splash wagon, South Beach, Miami's one and only
bikini and swimsuit store on wheels.
Cool.
How did you get into this enterprise?
Okay.
Sorry.
So she briefly does a drive by about that.

(13:14):
She's like, at some point I didn't write it down.
So I'm just going to talk about it now.
She's like ruminating to us about how like her mother tried to send her to college and
it wasn't for her.
But after the death of her parents, she tried it for a semester and then she like immediately
went into business selling bikinis on Miami Beach.
And I'm like, that is a wild origin story.

(13:35):
Also we said this in the debrief, but she had to sell or lose all of her parents' belongings.
So with what money did you purchase this bikini truck?
Well, yeah, I have so many questions.
But she did say that Timmy Tuna is, comes from a rich family.
So I'm wondering if it's like.
The Tuna air.
Yeah, the Tuna air.
That's what it sounds like.

(13:56):
I'm wondering if she somehow swindled him into like opening this store with her and like
fronting all the cash, but she's a co-owner.
I don't know.
We don't get details.
We're asking far too many questions.
It'll never matter.
Timmy's ceases to exist very fast.
Yeah, very fast.
For something that she cares so deeply about, quote unquote, it.
Her only friend.

(14:18):
Her only friend.
Her only friend.
Yeah.
It's unclear until far too long into the book on whether he was like a straight man or not,
which I guess doesn't really matter, but it was weird.
I didn't know the nature of their relationship.
I didn't know that he's not.
Okay, that's what I was wondering.
And I assume from a conversation later that he's gay.

(14:40):
Same.
Yeah.
Not confirmed, but.
Or he's at least comfortable talking about the hotness of other men.
So maybe he's bi.
I don't know.
Yeah.
And it's actual relationship.
Maybe.
At least right now.
It's still unclear.
Still unclear.
Anyway, Lily announces the winner of the wet t-shirt contest, which is a 30-something

(15:02):
year old man with a beer gut.
Classy.
And then she works the crowd as she tells us she normally does.
She's giving tourists recommendations, answering questions about the local area, etc.
One of the people that she runs into while doing this is a man in a suit with an English
accent.
Behind the English accent, he stands out because it's in South Beach, Miami, and he's wearing

(15:23):
a suit.
He tells Lily that he needs to speak with her privately, and her inner monologue is
immediately like, yeah, no, thank you.
That's weird.
But he insists and tells her that it's about her mother, Margaret.
He tells her to meet him at the Moxie Hotel at eight o'clock for more information.
Just as he leaves, he tells Lily, oh, and make sure you wear something decent because

(15:44):
she's in a bikini top and like short shorts.
It's lime green.
Yeah.
So it doesn't take a genius to know that this is Keller coming to get Lily, who is the
long lost granddaughter.
Spoilers.
Spoilers.
Just immediately.

(16:06):
So Lily does end up going to the hotel and waits in the lobby in which she describes as
a very low cut dress.
Eventually another man in another suit approaches her and says that she has to follow him.
But she's like, no, I'm not going anywhere unless I see some identification and the other
guy from earlier.
So this guy fetches the guy who we know is Keller.

(16:28):
And he shows her his ID and then gives her his phone for some reason, which she then
uses to call her friend Timmy Tuna so they can get a lock on the device to ensure her
safety.
One night.
Just use her own phone.
I have so many questions about that.
And also, why would you just hand a strange woman your phone?

(16:50):
Also, also, you're the secretary to the king.
Like isn't there like confidential stuff on that?
You know, that's like a security breach.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it seems like a security breach for them to be able to lock your phone regardless
of whether or not they had access to what's in it.
Like that's I'm sure you have to go to secret locations.
Like I just this is so weird.

(17:12):
It was so weird.
Yeah.
Again, who is Timmy Tuna and why does he know how to do this?
I know.
Well, okay.
And so this is just indicative of like one of many examples in this book where you're
giving me far too much detail and information that I don't need.
And I just and it ends up I ask more questions.
Yeah.
I think they were trying to set her up as being like savvy and self protective, but
it's just like this wild thread of information instead.

(17:36):
Yeah.
Truly.
That I didn't need.
I didn't need it.
Frankly.
Also, why would you go to this meeting alone?
I wouldn't have done that.
I wouldn't have either.
I would have brought a friend.
I would have been like no fucking way.
Whatever you can have to say to me, you can say to my friend, Timmy Tuna.
Timmy Tuna, my only friend, Mr. Tuna, who I have a really hard time not picturing as

(17:58):
a stuffed animal.
Okay.
Every because she only calls him Timmy Tuna.
It is one word.
I mean, it's written as two words, but like, it's Timmy Tuna.
It's a title.
It's never just Timmy or Mr. Tuna.
It's Timmy Tuna.
Yeah.
I'm not even confident.
His name is Timmy.
I think she just likes alliteration.
He's like John or something.
I'm not convinced his name is, I'm not convinced his government name is Timmy Tuna at all.

(18:21):
It's not.
There's no.
No, thank you.
Timmy Tuna, the third.
Mr. Tuna was my father.
Just call me Timmy.
Timmy.
Anyway, so they go up to the roof for the rest of their discussion in like a private
area of the rooftop bar, I guess.
Sure.
Just take her to your room.

(18:41):
It's fine.
Okay, fine.
And during the scene, we're seeing it from the perspective of Keller, who's ruminating
on how much harder his job is going to be now that he's actually met Lily because of,
one, her life in Miami.
He's immediately judging her for what he sees to be a very inappropriate line of work for
a future queen.
But his job is also going to be harder because she's beautiful and he's attracted to her.

(19:04):
She's described as having, quote, long white blonde hair, eyes the color of ice crystals
and a slender frame still curvy enough in all the right places for a man to grip onto.
I do not like the ice crystal eyes.
They sound terrifying.
Yeah, like a husky with blue eyes.
No, thank you.
Yeah, I don't like that when we get that in male characters.
I don't like that in anyone other than Draco Malfoy.

(19:25):
Yes, that's the one.
Also because his are more silver, so it's less creepy.
Well, and they turn gray when he does the occluding or whatever it's called.
Exactly.
So Keller convinces Lily that this is real by showing her a picture of her mother Margaret
when Margaret was younger with King Theo and Queen Katla.

(19:46):
He then shows her a picture that Lily's mother sent to King Theo of Lily when Lily
was a child.
This is the first that Lily has ever heard of this particular exchange and she's reeling
from it.
Keller goes on to say that King Theo has requested that Lily be brought to Tourskethorp and trained
in royal etiquette as an official heir in line for the throne.
He doesn't give her much room to think about it though because even though she's reeling

(20:10):
from all of this information and still has a lot of questions, he tells her their flight
leaves early the next morning whether she's on it or not.
When Lily goes back to her apartment, she debriefs with her friend Timmy Tuna.
They do some googling and find most of what Keller said that can be verified via third
party resources and Timmy Tuna encourages her to go.

(20:30):
He tells her that he and their other employees will have the bikini truck on lock so she
doesn't have to worry about that.
Online fixer about everything else and so Lily decides to go.
Which is a while, I mean, sure, why not?
I'm just trying to envision a world where my answer to that question would be yes.

(20:53):
I'm also trying to envision a world that this world, that this bikini truck has multiple
employees.
Yeah, I know.
Okay, okay, okay.
And we get a lot of information about these multiple employees.
They're Latina twins who always have more sales or something.
I'm like, why?

(21:14):
Why?
Why?
Because I didn't, honestly, you could have just left and I probably wouldn't even question
what happened to the truck because I would have assumed Timmy Tuna would take care of
it.
Right, he could have just said, I've got it handled.
I'll figure it out.
Go.
Yeah, go.
Cool.
I think the thing that I'm just trying to relate to and I just can't, there's no safety

(21:43):
plan.
I'm thinking if you were Lily and you were talking to me about this plan, I'd be like,
well, you got to take me with you or something.
Yeah.
Or bring a gun or something.
There's no fucking way that I would be like, yeah, girl, you should go by yourself tomorrow.

(22:05):
Right.
We did some brief Googling.
It's fine.
No, that's how people get sold.
Also, tomorrow, I got to pack up my stuff.
How long am I going for?
Do I need to end my lease?
Do I have a pet?
I got shit to do here tomorrow.
There's no accounting for the realities and practicalities of what this actually would

(22:27):
require.
Nope.
Not at all.
So like I said, Lily decides to go and we see her totally bored and filled with nervous
excitement on the private jet that she, Keller, and the security guard whose name is Breimar
take back to Torskethorp.
As they fly, Lily tries to engage Keller in conversation, but he is stonewalling her.

(22:51):
He tells her, quote, it is not my duty to get to know you.
It is my duty to bring you to Torskethorp.
And he thinks it would be better if they don't speak.
So he tries to make that happen.
Which doesn't make any sense because it's your job, which he says so many times, to
train me.
And you don't think we should bond a little bit?
Or like start now.
Yeah, teach me now.

(23:11):
We have like a 20 hour plane ride.
Give me some material about Torskethorp.
Torskethorp, which is a terrible name.
Right.
Tell me about the publicly available information about my family.
Like I just, I don't get it.
It doesn't make sense.
He's terrible.
He's the worst.
Lily continues to goad him and uses swearing language, which seems to rile him further to

(23:35):
the point where Keller says that she shouldn't swear at all in her new role.
Lily asks him why and he won't give her a good reason.
And she keeps asking why until he loses his temper.
We're told that Keller, quote, slams his book down and growls.
End quote.
I.

(23:56):
Okay, this is something I don't like that we see a lot, especially in like the like
Dommie BDSM books.
You don't have to have anger management problems to be a Dom.
Like I don't like that that we always get that.
Oh, it's both things.
Like it doesn't have to be.
You can just be a guy.
Yeah.
Like I just, there's so much about Keller that just signals to me that he doesn't know

(24:22):
how to manage his emotions very well.
Like I much prefer the Dom's that we read about that are like, like when they're annoyed,
they just get quieter.
Yeah.
Like this guy's like, if there were drywalls around, he would be punching hole in drywall.
Like he breaks a chair later.
Like just I just, that makes me uncomfortable because then it's threatening.

(24:46):
Like now you're genuinely violent and I don't, I don't like that.
I don't like that either.
I will say, so I don't know at what point I made this note, but this sounds so terrible
because I understand the book we're reading, but I don't like the way Lily talks.
Like she is really uncouth for lack of a better word.

(25:06):
Like she's kind of gross.
Yeah.
It's like, I feel like she's trying to be edgy and it just come, it's coming off as like,
you were born in a barn, weren't you?
Exactly.
And I know some of it is just trying to rile killer, but I think some of it is just her
personality and I don't like it.
I don't either.
And I, I feel like anti-feminist, I guess, saying that, but like, yeah, I think the reason

(25:32):
that it hits me the wrong way is that it very much snacks of like manic pixie dream girl
energy.
It does.
That's a hundred percent.
It's that vibe.
And that's what I don't like about it.
Yeah.
It's just like, this can't be you as a real person.
No.
It just goes so hard into it where I'm just like, what are you?
Who are you talking to?

(25:52):
Right.
Remind me of that energy when they land because I didn't put it in my notes, but I want to
talk about it in reference to that.
Okay.
So rather than just answering the goddamn question, Keller tells her that they're not
going to discuss anything and we should change the subject.
Eventually, Lily tells him that his frustration is self-induced because all she wants to do
is talk and he's stonewalling her.

(26:14):
He takes that into consideration and tells her that his full name is Keller Fitzwilliam
and his loyalty and allegiance lie with the palace of Torskethorp.
He's currently reading poetry and when he's not working, he spends his time hiking because
the country is stunning.
Cool.
Satisfied.
Lily takes a nap in the bed at the back of the plane.
When she wakes up, they've arrived, but as soon as the door to the plane opens, she realizes

(26:37):
that they are in a subarctic country and she's not wearing appropriate clothing, which feels
like something someone should have told her in the less than 24 hours she had to pack
for this flight.
Right.
Or at least provided her with a parka.
You don't have an extra parka in this private jet?
Right.
It's the vibes of the last book we read, Kingdom of the Cursed, where you're just going to

(27:02):
take me to this frozen tundra and not give me a coat or a warning.
In a fucking ball?
Come on.
That's how this felt because she's probably wearing a sports bra and yoga pants.
She's not prepared.
Right.
If this was truly a royal thing, they would have had all of that for her.
It wouldn't have been a problem.

(27:23):
She's a princess.
They don't treat her like a princess.
At all.
Ever.
This is one of the good examples of manic pixie dream girl energy because she nose dives
for the car, shortest path from the warm plane to the warm car that's waiting for them.
In the car, she's literally digging around in the seats with her hands.

(27:44):
When Keller joins her, she's like, have you seen my nipples?
I think they fell off.
It's so cold.
That's where I'm just like, I hate you.
Yeah.
You're not cute.
I'm like, girl.
We learn more.
I'm just like, I just don't leave something to the imagination.
I know that's anti-feminist.
You do you.

(28:05):
You're not a real person.
Ugh.
I would hate her.
We wouldn't be friends.
That's for sure.
I didn't even see this as funny because I read it as literal and I thought she was talking
about pasty nipples.
They fell off because it was so cold.
They weren't adhering anymore.
I was like, oh, that's so inconvenient.
Then I was like, oh, you're trying to be funny.

(28:26):
This is where, to my point earlier, I don't think she's trying to rile him.
This is where I think this is just her personality.
Right.
Woof.
Yeah.
Big woof.
So you're pointing with the pasty nipples, which is not what's happening, but that would
be wildly inconvenient.
Right.
But then it's like, what are you, it's just, it was such a, another example of something

(28:48):
that I wish we didn't have to see.
And like, you could just be cold.
Just show me that you're cold.
I don't need this.
So our Mary Banda Vassels drives to the south end of the country where they end up at a
castle named Harrogate.
We learned that Harrogate is mostly abandoned and it used to be the summer palace of the
royal family.

(29:08):
The reason they're going there instead of the main palace is because King Theo doesn't
want to put too much pressure around Lily before she's made her final decision.
Compounding this, there's a leak in the palace that has the media swarming around a lost,
a long lost granddaughter coming back into town.
Keller is stressed because they don't know who this leak is.

(29:29):
Once they arrive at this disheveled palace, Brymar goes into town to pick up his girlfriend
Lara, who will be staying with them and works for the palace as well.
I didn't realize that she also was a bodyguard until far later and I was like, you're just
letting this guy have his girlfriend around?
Yeah.
Well, because he leads with that.

(29:50):
He leads with, oh, he's picking up his girlfriend.
He's picking up another bodyguard, right?
Like who happens to be?
Yeah.
So like that vibe immediately is like, oh, we're all on vacation here.
Like we're renting an Airbnb situation.
That confused me.
I was like, this is wild.
And it's such a plot device just to get another woman in this house.

(30:11):
Who again is positioned to be a friendly person, but is still, say it with me, staff.
You can't be friends with your staff.
You can't be friends with people you pay.
Anyway, so Lily and Keller share the two rooms upstairs while Brymar and Lara will
share the room on the first floor because they be fucking.

(30:32):
The room upstairs is a Jack and Jill situation where they have a shared bathroom, but all
of the doors are so old and ill used that there's not really any privacy because none
of them shut appropriately.
It can be just wild.
As they settle in, Keller can realize that Lily is going through the phases of regret
and he tells her, don't worry, it's not going to be forever just until things calm down.
And she's like, yeah, no, I'm fine.

(30:54):
Because not only is this like a such a wild situation to be in, but this castle is falling
apart.
Like it's dark, it's cold, nothing works right.
Like the bathroom, they described the toilet in the bathroom as being like six inches off
the ground.
Yeah.
Not cute.
No, not cute.
Well, and I mean, like from Lily's perspective, she's expecting to meet like long lost family

(31:21):
and doesn't.
Because that's what she was promised.
That's what lured her here.
Yep.
So when Lara arrives, she's also brought warmer clothes for Lily.
So Lily is not freezing to death, which like, why was that Lara's responsibility?
It's fine.
It's fine.
And why was that just not already there?
Why doesn't Lily, why doesn't Keller, like instead of two bodyguards and Keller, shouldn't

(31:45):
it be like some kind of ladies made two bodyguards and Keller and then like a host of tutor?
Like it's just, why is it Keller's sole responsibility to do this?
Like I just, he's not the best equipped person for this.
No, it's terrible.
It is, it's, it doesn't make any sense.
Also they're like, we didn't have enough time.
I'm like, well, they had to fly all the way to Miami, stay there for probably at least

(32:08):
two days and fly all the way back.
Cause you had at least 72 hours and you couldn't get this roll of jacket.
I'm, and you're not going to tell me that you couldn't make a single call back to Torsk
a Thorpe and be like, Hey, homegirl lives in Miami.
Can you like get some winter clothes?
She's a size X.
Yeah.
Are we world?
I'm just saying there's, and that, and that is where my question comes in where I'm like,

(32:29):
is this even what's happening in this book?
But of course it is.
Of course it is, but I'm just like, could it not be?
Could it not be me?
Cause she's not a princess.
She's not being given the princess treatment.
That's for sure.
Nope.
So we learned that the internet is spotty at best and it's completely at the first night
that they get there.

(32:50):
I wanted this to be a bigger issue, but it feels like it was just something that was
offhandedly done.
Like there's no reason that we get this information.
Yeah.
The four of them have dinner and then Lily turns in early for the night.
When she does the remaining three of them talk about how this isn't exactly the best
introduction for Lily to Torsk a Thorpe.

(33:11):
They talk about how they're trying to figure out who the leak in the palaces, but they've
had nothing so far.
Lara in particular remarks how Keller has lost any semblance of patience since Lily
came into the picture, which is odd because she's only seen them for a couple of hours.
Yeah.
After a day of travel, when like all of our, I lose some patience after traveling all day.

(33:34):
So this was a weird comment to make.
Yeah.
Keller defends himself though saying that he thinks the idea of convincing Lily to become
a royal person when she's never even heard of the country is a joke.
But the other two counsel him to be more patient.
Okay.
I mean Keller's kind of onto something.
Yeah.
No, he's not wrong.

(33:56):
So this is when we learned that the three of them, Lara, Breimar and Keller grew up together
because their parents all worked in the palace.
Keller talks about a fond memory that he has when they were all playing hide and go seek
in the palace.
And that was the first time they met King Theo because the King joined into their game.
He tells us that King Theo from that day forward was like a grandfather to all of them.

(34:18):
And this is the first indication that I have that King Theo needs to say no to more people.
Or maybe if King Theo treated his actual biological children the way he treats the servants children,
his kids would have stayed around.
Oof.
You're not wrong.
Just saying.
Yeah.
It just feels like we see a lot of King Theo like or like second hand, I'll say either

(34:45):
he's on the phone or we get memories of him.
And it's just he's a weird character for a King to be.
Oh, I think later Keller would legitimately describe some as cool, which I've never heard
to describe any King ever.
No.
Well, and like he just seems very accessible, which seems like.

(35:07):
I don't know.
It feels like that that version of him versus what we're we're experiencing with like, oh,
we got to keep her secret, keep it safe.
That just doesn't jive for me.
We talked about this in our debrief, but like either I would have thought King Theo would
have been like very upfront about like, hey, this is my last great granddaughter.

(35:27):
We're going to bring her into the country and like teacher how to do blah, blah.
Everybody be nice, right?
Or I would make it super public so that I would use that pressure on her to make her stay.
Right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
But this weird halfway doesn't make any sense to me.
No.
Okay.

(35:47):
And the the idea of the reason that they're not bringing her to like the main palace to
like meet everybody because of this like leak or whatever, like just kick all of the press
out of the out of the palace or like, so what if the leak like gets out?
Like the most you're going to get is just like gossip columns, right?
Like you can control the narrative more that way.

(36:09):
It just doesn't seem like a very strong reason for her to not go directly to the palace and
like meet her fucking family.
Exactly.
And like, why can't you learn all of this stuff in the palace?
Like you can keep her safe in the palace and the other thing that's weird about this whole
keep it secret, keep it safe is you were really going to keep this full secret and then be
like, surprise.
There's your new queen.

(36:29):
Right.
Like what, what was the plan there?
There was no plan.
No plan.
Yeah.
Because even, even later, like we'll talk about it when we get there, but like they,
they end up being pressured into going back to the palace and they're like, okay, so then
we'll make this plan and then we'll do the introduction.
I'm like, did you not have the introduction planned such that you were assuming she was

(36:53):
going to say yes after this process?
Because I would have.
I would have had that all planned.
Yeah.
Like ready to go ready to pull the trigger.
Yeah.
From the second King Theo was like, go get my granddaughter.
I would have started planning that.
Right.
Including some winter ass clothes.
Just saying.
There were no thoughts given to this other than fetch the child.

(37:14):
Right.
So back to Lily who is in bed and can't sleep because of all of the creepy sounds from the
massive derelict palace.
Taylor checks on her and she finds this odd because he hasn't exactly been kind to her.
He says it's not that he's unkind.
It's just that she irritates him.

(37:35):
Is that a good reason to be unkind?
No.
Okay.
I just wanted to check because I felt like I was being gaslit a little bit.
It's not a good reason to be unkind and it doesn't make sense why he would come in at,
come, come at her as such a hard ass when like you're going to need to work together.
You're going to need her to trust you.
Right.

(37:55):
Like you're going about this the wrong way.
Also, who made you secretary because you have no people skills.
Like negative amounts of charisma.
Like when you were rolling your character sheet, you got a negative role on that.
Yeah.
Negative role.
So Kelly reveals that he was the source of some of those weird noises that were keeping

(38:16):
Lily up because he was trying to get his pen to keep writing for his diary, but he was
running out of ink.
He tells Lily that it's a tradition for the royal secretaries to keep notes so that they
might eventually be published one day as a part of the royal history.
Only if they want it to me though, that was so wishy washy.
I know.

(38:36):
And Lily tries to ask like what he's written about her and then goes on to say like, okay,
well at least tell me what's going on.
And he's like, nope, you'll find out eventually go to bed.
Okay.
Cool.
All right.
And so now I'm going to do this annoying thing where I start counting the days that they've
been there because this is the big problem that I have with this book is one, we're forced

(39:01):
to spend every last measly 24 hours with these people.
And also there's a lot of love bombing happening in a very short amount of time.
So we're on day two.
Please do this for the whole book.
Oh, I will.
I'll do my best.

(39:22):
So Lily is awoken by Lara who says that it's time to go for a jog.
So because all of her security detail is going, Lily must go to they can't stay home and work
out inside.
They're going to forward like, go.
She's a princess.
Go when you don't all have to run together as a threesome.
I know.

(39:42):
Okay.
But also like the whole she's a princess.
She can do what she wants.
Like these people treat her.
And appropriately they do.
That's what I don't understand.
Is she a princess or not?
Because no one treated Mia Thermopolis this way.
That's true.
Nobody made Mia Thermopolis go for a run at six in the morning.
I'm just kidding.
Also, why does it have to be six in the morning anyway?

(40:05):
Now that it matters because they're in the land of endless summer, right?
So the sun never goes down.
Yep.
Anyway, Lily is not a runner, but she tries to keep up.
As they get further from the castle though, she starts to realize that she might have
a predicament on her hands and asks Keller if she's a captive.
It's a reasonable assumption.

(40:26):
I was wondering the same thing.
I still kind of am.
I still kind of am.
Yeah.
I mean, they could have gotten literally any old guy in like Hugh Hefner robe and been
like cough a little bit.
You're a king.
Yeah.
And he'd be like, oh, Lily.
Right.
Dottin.
Lily Ha.
So Keller tells her that if she wants to leave, all she has to do is say the word.

(40:47):
She's not a captive, but she's like, okay, still, this isn't what I signed up for.
Like where's my family?
And he says, he knows, but it's what they have to deal with.
And so just give him a little bit more time.
So the jogging thing ends pretty quickly because Lily is again, I can't say this enough, not
a runner.
And so she and Keller end up fast walking.

(41:08):
As they do, they talk about why the island has no trees.
And we learned that the Viking stripped land when they first landed there and very few
have grown back, but the volcanic land is very rich.
So they do have a nice like lush vegetation side that is good for farming or some shit.
This is a part of her quote training.

(41:28):
We also learned that one of the volcanoes on the island is called Loki.
And this is where Lily makes a Marvel reference that I just can't with.
But we learned that fortunately this is a reference to North North mythology, not Marvel
characters.
Thank God.
Yeah.
We also learned that the only native animal on the island is the Nordic fox.
So many facts and figures.
Isn't it exciting?

(41:50):
Lily for one is excited that she doesn't have to worry about the animals on the island
killing her like she does in Florida.
Relatable.
That is relatable.
No flying cockroaches either.
No, thank God.
So they talk about the name Torskethorp and how it means cod settlement.
And that leads them to this conversation about how they're surrounded by schools of cod in

(42:13):
the ocean and that it's one of the main staples of their diet.
So this is all to illustrate.
This is a very like Nordic adjacent culture.
And there's a lot of overlap there.
Yeah, that's definitely what it's based on heavily.
Yeah.
So back at the ranch, everybody showers and eats and then they speak with King Theo over
a zoom call.

(42:33):
We learned that Lily's actual name is Lilija.
Is that her actual name or is that just like a nickname?
I think Lily is a nickname for Lilija.
Okay.
Because I read that as like it was like a pet name.
But that makes more sense that that would be her real name because she's like, oh, my

(42:55):
mom called me that.
And I was like, because it's your name.
Because it's your name.
Yeah, it's your legal ass name.
Yeah, maybe.
I don't know.
She's called.
It doesn't matter.
Yeah.
It could be a nickname because later when they say that her name has been leaked to the
press, it's Lily, whatever.
So I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know.
And it doesn't really matter.

(43:15):
Yeah, it doesn't really matter.
But the King calls her Lilija.
Which makes her accept him as grandfather.
Yeah, because like you said, it's just, it's the exact same thing that her mom used to
call her.
During this conversation, the King tells Lily that not only is she un-air for the throne,
she is actually next in line for the throne and not just some nameless princess.

(43:39):
Lily at first thinks that this is a joke and that she's on a reality TV show, but the King
shows her that it's not a prank and that she's there for a really important reason.
She is their only hope to preserve the country and culture from being invaded by their political
enemies.
Question mark.
Also, like, who are these political enemies?
They're just going to wipe out the entire culture.

(44:01):
That's going to wrap up centuries.
It's true.
My bad.
Mom, when you're taken to the right map, Batman, you have no more culture.
That's true.
Batmobile's everywhere.
Batmobile's everywhere.
Black spandex everywhere.
Everywhere.
So they hang up with the King and now that they've spoken with King Theo, apparently
Keller is more at liberty to speak on what's happening.

(44:23):
So before he dives into anything, he gives her a letter from the King.
In this letter, King Theo tells her that he's been a part of her life from a distance,
respecting her mother Margaret's wishes of keeping her two lives separate.
However, now, the risk to the country is too great and he has to break that promise.
He asks her to let Keller train her in their culture for two months and after that, if
she doesn't feel like it's a life for her, she can go back to Miami.

(44:47):
To which I say, it will breeze past this later, but like, her parents straight up died several
years ago.
But like, now that it's convenient for you, you're going to reach out like, I just, there's
something about that that hits me wrong.
It feels, it feels really gross to me.

(45:08):
Yeah.
Um, also we'll get the family tree here, like right now in a second.
But from the prologue, it wasn't clear to me that Lily's parents had died and I was
like, why would her mom not just be the heir?
And then I was like, Oh, she's dead.
Nevermind.
She's dead.

(45:28):
Yeah.
Whoops.
Yeah.
My bad.
So let's get into the family tree.
Cause after a while, Lily asks to speak with Keller privately and they go back up to her
room and she asks about her aunts and uncles.
He tells her about Paula, who was the oldest sister and who married another royal and so
abdicated her position.
Then there's Roland, the second born son, but he was a fuck boy and got exiled for rolling

(45:50):
around a thousand year old Moss, sacred Moss.
And then there was Svien who was married, but it turns out his wife was actually a lesbian
who ran off with a lady in waiting.
And so he ended up taking a sailing boat into the ocean and they haven't been able to see
him since, which brings us to Margaret and Lily.
And to your point, Margaret is dead.

(46:10):
And so to be clear, two of these heirs are still alive and just like around.
Yeah.
One of them is a fuck boy.
So like, I get that.
But yeah.
The other one is just missing.
Can't you just wait a little bit longer?
I don't know.
And even the one who's a fuck boy, like I've seen that movie, they can get it together

(46:35):
or he's going to become, come back as a supervillain.
Right.
There's only two options and we want him to not be a supervillain.
So like maybe bring it back into the fold.
Yeah.
Also, I'm going to bring this up again.
Theo, maybe if you treated your children nicely.
None of this sort of happened.
I mean, like you can't control people, but even Paula, it was like there was some falling

(46:55):
out with her and her mom too.
Yeah.
Well, because, okay.
So it's not, we're going to learn about it shortly.
So I'll just talk about it now.
So Paula left, right?
And her mom was like mad about it.
And so she was like, okay, nobody else can leave the, none of my children can leave the
country because you've got to stay here into your duty.

(47:17):
And that's why Margaret was like, fuck that noise and left and like broke ties with her
family and like never spoke to her mom again, which was, which was the only reason why she
was like corresponding with Theo rather than Theo and Katla, which like, okay, guys, I
feel like there's a middle ground here.
There is a middle ground.

(47:38):
Also, I feel like by the time you had a child, I don't know, you could let bygones be bygones.
Like you moved out, you had your life.
Right.
Also, Margaret, by the point she left, I assume that the other three were already, well, no,
I guess not.
I guess Sv'en didn't go missing yet, but like, you're not worried about your home country
or your parents.
Right.

(47:59):
But then also like Paula, can't you realize not Paula, Katla, like maybe that's why one
of your sons grew up as a fuck boy and the other one grew up without being able to like
effectively manage like loss.
Like that's what I'm saying.
After creating a hostile environment, it's a problem.
Yeah.

(48:19):
Big problem.
So after Lily's given this information about her family, she expresses that she's angry
with her parents for not saying anything about this to her at all.
And it feels like Keller has more to say about the situation.
And so she pressures him into telling her.
And this is where he tells her the reason that Margaret left is because of a fight with
her mother Katla about wanting more freedom, blah, blah, blah.

(48:44):
So after divulging this information to Lily, Keller tells us internally that it's surprisingly
easy for her to get secrets out of him, especially secrets of the state, which is important to
him because his highest loyalty he sees is to the like the palace and like the Royals
there, not necessarily to Lily for now.

(49:04):
I had so many questions about this because I, he says, oh, my loyalty is to the palace.
And I'm like, okay, Lily is like, regardless of whether or not she decides that she wants
to stay, she's still by blood and therefore legally part of the palace.
So like, I don't understand why there's this arbitrary line.

(49:26):
That's a really good question because like you're loyal to the country, but this is the
future of your country, but you're not loyal to her.
And so you're just creating more problems by not being completely like forthcoming with
information with her.
And none of these things are like state secrets.
Like he gets these so weird about like, well, this isn't really my story to tell.

(49:46):
I'm like, okay, but it's her family history.
It is.
Okay.
And then also like, I'm sorry.
Y'all are an island in the Baltic Sea.
Get over yourselves.
Like he's not like, she's not asking for bank account numbers.
Like can you just like, flow your roll a little bit?
Right.
Like it's really going to be fine.
It's going to be fine.
It's going to be fine.

(50:06):
And you're going to have to tell her all the state secrets if you want her to be queen.
Yes.
So why not get out of the way now?
Get all of the skeletons out of the closet, my friend.
So Lily spends the rest of the evening alone in her room, but doesn't come up with any
more answers.
And so in the middle of the night, she finds that she's hungry since she skipped dinner.

(50:27):
She tries to sneak downstairs for a snack, but ends up making a noise, which makes Lara
react by striking who she believes is an intruder with the handle of a mop.
This cracks Lily in the face and the whole house is then awake.
Keller picks Lily up off the floor, puts her on the couch and makes sure she's okay, even
though she's got this big egg gash on her forehead.
Like her skull is bleeding.

(50:48):
Like her skull is bleeding, right?
And in her haze, she realizes that Keller is only in a pair of boxer briefs.
Lily remarks to us internally that she's never seen a man in boxer briefs before, which
is really a tragedy.
And now that she's seen one, all she can think about is the size of the bulge in front of
her face as he tends to hurt the wound on her head.

(51:10):
Lara is running around feeling like shit, overly apologizing, but Lily tells her it's
for the best because she was on alert and just doing her job.
Yeah, come down, girl.
Ultimately, Lara and Brymar go back to bed and Keller tends to Lily.
He seems to get angry when Lily keeps saying that she's fine and that he's overreacting.
He tells her that she's his responsibility and if she gets hurt, that's on him.

(51:30):
He tells her she's important to this country and how would she like it if something happened
to her bikini wagon, right?
Because her bikini wagon is important to her.
How would she feel?
Just a wild analogy to me, but that's fine.
Yeah, no, this whole thing is wild because he goes on to say, quote, even if you decide
that you don't want to be a part of royal life and you go back to Miami until that time

(51:52):
has come, you matter most.
There's so many double negatives in this.
So let's just strike out even and don't.
So if you decide you want to be a part of royal life and you don't go back to Miami,

(52:16):
you matter most.
But if you do go back to Miami, you still matter most.
Yeah, no, you don't matter most.
You matter like nothing.
You only matter if you're doing the right thing.
You cease to exist if you don't help us, even though I'm not helping you.
Right.
And Lily gets butterflies in her stomach because she tells us this is the first time anybody
has looked at her with such intensity.
And she confesses to us that this is what she's always looked for in a man.

(52:38):
And I'm like, but what he's saying to you is fucked up.
Yeah, what he's saying to you is you only matter if you do what we want you to do.
Right.
So Keller stands up and his crotch is still close to her face and she's openly staring.
Keller tells her to not and she plays dumb because she really wants to jump his body.

(53:00):
And then he does some dirty talk here and then like promptly goes up to his room to
grab a blanket.
Okay.
So like I was here for the chemistry, but going back and thinking about it, he makes
no sense as a person.
Like even the dirty talk here is like, why would you say that?
You don't know.

(53:20):
This is day two.
This is day two.
Day two friends and family.
Yeah.
Okay.
And like this, this seems just comical to me because this is not how it was described
in the book, but in my head, he does like a little like overly sexy camp, like walk
up the stairs because he knows that she's looking.
Honestly that's what I pictured as well because how could he not?

(53:43):
How could he not?
I mean, it's the first time she's seen boxer briefs on a man.
Holy shit.
Okay.
And then we learn more about like her own sexual history and I'm just like, but you've
never seen boxer briefs.
There's no fucking way the millionaire you were dating in Miami was wearing boxers.
No because only children wear boxers.
Or if he was wearing a jockstrap girl, he was not a hundred percent straight.

(54:04):
Nope.
Which is fine.
Which is fine.
But like.
Right.
I, that's the worst.
Okay.
So I had to like, she, she calls these boxer briefs, but then she talks about how they're
like cut up to his hip.
And I'm just picturing those as tiny whiteies.
Yeah.
No, that was a weird description and I had to erase it from my mind until you just reminded

(54:24):
me of it.
I'm sorry.
I couldn't get past it.
I was like, also I could only picture him as a Ken doll with like flesh colored groin.
I don't know.
Like just smooth and fleshy, but like it's also printed with like a waistband.
I'm not into color.
Like I'm into their chemistry and I'll say that again and like it, it, it works for me

(54:47):
kind of later.
Yeah.
But I don't know, man.
I'm also not into Keller mostly because Keller makes me uncomfortable, but I also kept having
this weird thought in my head and I think it was just the intrusive thoughts.
But I was like, man, I wonder how much of this book is written by an AI.
Oh, and like fully this was published in 2022.

(55:10):
Like I feel like AI was definitely not where it is today, but it reads at some points like
that because some of the things are just non sequitur.
Like the characters like don't, they're not consistent.
They don't make sense.
And then there's just weird like off handed things about like how boxer briefs were cut
up to the hip.
I'm like, what is not the Keeney?
Like exactly.
There's also some editing things that I'll point out a little bit later on, but like

(55:34):
there's some problems, major problems besides the fact that we spend every waking moment
with these people.
Oh my God, because again, it's day two and we've been recording for over an hour.
Yes.
Buckle up.
We go to day 10 in this part.
I guess they spend the rest of the night on the couch because Keller like wants to wake
her up every hour to make sure she doesn't have a concussion, which seems egregious.

(55:57):
It does.
But I'm not a doctor.
So like whatever.
Nope.
So because he's in his pajamas, we can finally see a little bit of the tattoo popping up
from the neckline and we're given to understand that that covers the majority of his chest.
I think that was probably covered when he was in his boxers earlier, but I wasn't reading
that closely.
Yeah.
It had to have been because of the only thing he was wearing were boxers.

(56:21):
You had to be able to see his chest, but the tattoo thing seems to come and go because
she doesn't mention it every time.
I also just don't.
Maybe we'll talk about it later in the book, but like I'm kind of over like men in these
romance novels having just like full torso tattoos for no reason.
Yeah.
No.

(56:41):
And I pictured him as being his as being like really classic tribal.
I know.
My classic.
I mean, bad can't be.
Yeah.
But I mean like homeboy literally is like milk toast grew up in a palace white boy.
Right.
Like, yeah.
Where did you get these and why?
What are you fucking doing?

(57:01):
Like, did you join a biker gang when you were in like primary school?
I just don't understand.
It doesn't make sense.
A tricycle gang.
A tricycle gang.
Anyway, like I'm just picturing like my husband having a full torso tattoo and I just wouldn't
take him seriously.

(57:21):
I'm just like, what the fuck are you doing?
Yeah.
No, I couldn't see who it looked like.
He was playing dress up.
Yes.
Exactly.
So he's like sitting in a chair and she's lying on the couch and Lily is ogling him
and he's like go to sleep and she's like, but the sky is awake.
So I can't just go to sleep.

(57:43):
Also, you're staring at me like a creeper cat.
I can't just go to sleep.
Yeah.
So instead they talk about her mother Margaret and how Margaret loved to embroider this particular
style of embroidery is apparently very difficult because it's white on white and very intricate.
But Margaret was very good at it.
They also talk about a popular dessert on the island called Vinitart, which is usually

(58:05):
eaten during a festival of Torg in the summer.
That's also when they drink mead, which Keller describes as fermented honey water for some
reason and Lily's never heard of it.
And I just find this whole conversation ridiculous.
Because A, that's not what meat is.
B, you've never heard of it.
Get both of you get out of here.
Right.
I'm going to lose my fucking number. I don't fucking believe you.

(58:29):
No.
I like for Keller to describe it as fermented honey water.
Yes, that's technically true.
But that also tells me you know nothing about how alcohol is distilled.
Right.
Also call it honey wine.
Like that's the easiest descriptor.
She knows what wine is.
That is what it is.
Like exactly.
I mean, yes.
So technically wine is fermented grape water.

(58:51):
Yes.
Well spotted.
But no one calls it that.
No, because nobody would drink it.
No, it sounds gross.
So Keller is talking about this festival of Torg and Lily asks what his favorite part
of Torg is and he references one of the traditions, which is wood carving.
This man has too many hobbies.
I'm sorry.

(59:11):
He carves wood.
He writes poetry.
He's got too many hobbies.
Well, he goes to a tattoo artist on a regular basis because he's got his whole fucking body
tattooed.
Right.
Also that.
And he's physically fit and he keeps a diary.
And he's got a full time job.
Yeah.
Okay.
Sure.
Sure, Jane.
So then as Lily drifts off to sleep, she asks Keller if he thinks that she could do this

(59:36):
job and he says, quote, I think your life is in Miami, but your soul rests among the
moss and the lava rock.
You belong here, Lily.
And Lily tells us it's the first time that she feels like he doesn't dislike her and
admits to herself that she wants him to like her and to not be disappointed in her.
And I'm like, whoa, day two.
It's still day two.

(59:57):
It's still day two.
Wow.
So the next morning, Lara again apologizes to Lily and at breakfast, Lily tells everybody
that she's decided to give the two month thing a chance.
Given that news, Keller sneaks upstairs to shower and calls the king and tells him about
the news.
The king tells Keller to give her a realistic picture of what her life would be like and

(01:00:21):
Keller agrees.
They both know that she needs to be mentally prepared for the responsibility of potentially
becoming queen.
The king then tells Keller that the queen also knows that Lily is there and though she's
happy, she also seems worried, almost like she doesn't want to meet Lily because she's
afraid she'll just lose her again.
Keller asks the king to talk to Lily more, but the king doesn't want her to see him sick,

(01:00:43):
but it feels like he's not going to get better.
So I don't really understand what he's going for there.
It doesn't make sense to me.
So like you're her grandfather, I don't think she cares if you're sick, she just wants to
meet her family.
Right.
And I don't understand what the difference is between like you already talked to her
on a Zoom call once like just do that every day.

(01:01:03):
She saw you cough.
Yeah.
Before the king hangs up, he tells Keller quote, I have faith in you Keller, my son.
And it's here that we really see illustrated the king seeing Keller as his son to the point
where he's admitted earlier in the book that he would give Keller the spot of his air in
a heartbeat if he could, which like, if that's not laying the groundwork for spoilers, I

(01:01:26):
don't know what it is.
Also because like your king, you could, you could, you literally could.
The country might not like it, but you could.
Right.
So when Keller hangs up, he thinks about the night before and the way that Lily kind of
came on to him in a very inappropriate way and how much he liked it and how he needs
to lock those feelings down right now.
Okay.

(01:01:47):
Lily looked at him because he was just like balls in her face and he said something really
dirty.
Don't blame her for that.
Nope.
I'm only defending her right now.
It goes away very fast.
Yeah.
So back downstairs, it's day one of training and they go into a room with literally nothing

(01:02:08):
but a chair in it.
Like an interrogation room.
It's kind of creepy and Keller's like, it'll help you focus and Lily is like on what planet?
It will not.
So she makes a scene until there's a plant, a rug, a table and an extra chair brought
into the room and then they get started.
Keller tries to get out the five categories that they will train in, but Lily keeps interrupting

(01:02:31):
him, which causes him to lose his temper and growl at her.
Finally, he does get out the five categories, which are etiquette, appearance, history,
crisis management and cultural traditions.
And we learn that crisis management is literally what to do if she gets kidnapped, which spoilers
will come up in part two.
I can't imagine why.

(01:02:51):
As soon as they said crisis management, I was like, is she going to get kidnapped?
Is that going to be the dance room distress thing?
Yep.
So they start with appearance and we learn that while she's welcome to wear what she
wants when she's not in public, there are strict guidelines when she is in public.
They talk about whether she has tattoos and she says she only has one tattoo on the inside
of her arm to commemorate the death of her parents.

(01:03:12):
And she goes on to share apropos of nothing that her nipples and clit are pierced.
Ouch.
And she also goes into list the number of places that she's had sex and that she's
been to a sex club a couple of times.
She admits she likes sex, but she's never taken any news or recorded herself, so that
shouldn't be a problem.
And then she talks about a particular millionaire she used to date in Miami and Keller asks
the wildly inappropriate question of whether that guy was her Dom.

(01:03:33):
And she's like, yeah, actually he was.
But she does say she's not involved with anyone at the moment.
This is, I didn't know what to do with any of this information.
I was like, we're doing this to falsely instigate some sexual relationship and it's just like
wildly inappropriate.
Yeah.

(01:03:54):
And this is where like, I mean, this story was not held together by a whole lot earlier,
but this is really where it fell apart because I'm just like, as soon as Keller realized
that he was in this position where he was like, could not control his insatiable lust
for this woman, he should have called in someone else.
Like this is just not okay.

(01:04:16):
And this is also not what would happen.
Like this is just not, I just don't believe it.
I don't believe it either.
I don't believe any of it.
So this litany of confessions has Keller feeling all kinds of hot and bothered, but they are
interrupted before anything can happen because Breymar has an update about quote, supplies

(01:04:37):
have been delivered to an undisclosed location.
I'm going to pick them up.
Laura will be here.
And I'm like, bro, how are you going to go to the location if it's undisclosed?
Also it's probably just the town that you went to go pick Laura up from.
Also what's, are we talking about like groceries?
Like are there more winter clothes for homegirl?
Like I just, I don't know.

(01:05:00):
Also just as wise I've been delivered, I'm going to go get them.
Why do you have to go rent them errands?
Yeah.
No one cares Breymar, get out of here.
Right.
We were having a moment.
So later in the afternoon after a long day of training where Lily and Keller are incredibly
sexually charged, Lily and Lara go for a walk.
Lara tells her that she thinks that Keller is trying to give Lily a glimpse of what life

(01:05:22):
will be like if she takes the job so she can have all of the information necessary to make
the right decision for her.
Lily says it's going to be difficult for her because she feels like she has to hide
parts of who she is, but Lara encourages her to just have a child filter on when she's
in public.
There's so many times that Lara says something in a better way than Keller did and she's
like, oh, that makes sense.
I'm like, Lara should be the one doing this.

(01:05:42):
Yeah, she absolutely should.
Or at least some of it.
Like it shouldn't just be this, okay, well one, it should never just be this one point
of failure.
No.
Two.
Definitely not when that one point of failure can't keep it in his pants.
So they talk again about the incident with the mop handle and Lara says that Keller was
distraught because he's protective of Lily.

(01:06:02):
Lily tells us that she'd like to believe that something is there in that protectiveness,
but even if there was, she knows that Keller would never act on it.
As they walk back to the castle, Lily jokes that she's been watching Bridgerton so she
can use that as material to annoy Keller more.
This is where I just don't like her as a character because like you're just trying to annoy him
and like you're making his job harder and like, I don't like either of you to be fair,

(01:06:25):
but it's the manic, pasty dream girl.
Yeah, and like he says at some point that she's not taking this seriously and I think
he's right.
Like she's not.
Yeah.
She's not at all.
So we move on to day four.
As they come back from their morning jog, Lily watches Keller do push-ups like a sleazy

(01:06:45):
old man and then she tells him that she's been thinking that they're going to have to get
married since they're spending so much time alone without a chaperone.
Keller says, quote, I'll get married right here right now, but I'll tell you this, you're
not going to enjoy being my wife.
I take what I want when I want and if my wife dares disobey me, there will be consequences.
Gross.
Lily finds this hot.

(01:07:06):
I find it disgusting.
I do too.
I would be immediately turned off.
I'd be out.
But she says this out loud and then calls Keller, sir.
This causes him to punch the stone next to her and tells her not to test him.
He tells her, quote, trust me, Lily, if I was stealing your virtue, you would fucking know

(01:07:27):
I was.
Also how come she's not allowed to cuss, but he cusses like every sentence he speaks.
Right.
And also, like, why, why when you get like physically sexually motivated, you just get
violent.
See, I, that's what I don't like.
I'm like, that's not what you need to be.
And now you just seem threatening and it's toxic and I don't like it.
Right.

(01:07:47):
Because then it's like, okay, how do I not know or how do I know how that's going to
manifest when we actually are in that situation?
Exactly.
In training, they talk about how the king is briefed every morning about current events,
but since it's classified information, Lily can't have that same briefing to which I ask,
why the fuck not?
Lily drifts in and out of paying attention for the rest of the lesson when Keller literally

(01:08:09):
smacks the table out of frustration like a child.
He tells her that she's not taking this seriously, but she finds his agitation very hot.
And then she gaslights him about whether she said something, someone's name right to the
point where he kicks the chair across the room and breaks it.
She does fully gaslight him and I would also want to kick a chair, but also why are we
kicking things?
Why are we gaslighting him?

(01:08:31):
That's so rude.
Like I hate gaslighting at all, especially like, I mean, you just shouldn't gaslight people.
That's rude.
There are better ways to get back at people.
Exactly.
It was just completely unnecessary.
It's also in this conversation that Lily brings up like the thing that she calls the
informative or maybe Keller calls it that, but she's trying to look for essentially the

(01:08:53):
Bridgerton gossip rag thing.
And instead of like,
Lady whistle down.
Yeah.
The lady whistle down thing.
And instead of getting annoyed, Keller just kind of goes along with it, which doesn't
fit in his personality.
No, especially because directly after that, he gets so hot and bothered that he like kicks
a chair across the room like, Bro, where are you going to sit?

(01:09:13):
There's like four chairs in this entire castle.
And you just broke one of them.
Right.
So day five and Keller is just as irritated and Lily is just as annoying.
This escalates to a screaming match and Lily flipping the table before leaving the room.
Because they're both children.
Yep.
Day six, back in the room, she apologizes to the table.

(01:09:38):
Then she tells Keller that the way that he's going about teaching her, training her is
killing her.
She asks whether they can drive around or get out of the castle.
And he says, no, because they're not at liberty to do so because he said so.
Okay.
He goes on to say that she needs to stay hidden.
She tells him that he needs to figure out a better way to teach her these things and
at least go into a different room because not only does this book do the thing of taking

(01:10:02):
place in one location, we're in one room.
Yeah.
Well, and like this, this, this castle isn't even real to me because like this, this book
is almost entirely conversations happening.
Yeah.
And like, so they're just in what is essentially like a stone dungeon from like an N64 game

(01:10:26):
to me.
Like there's just no other like richness or texture or like believability about it.
And I, it just, it's, it's the book is happening in a box for me.
Like it's just not a well-developed, fully fleshed out world.
The N64 stone dungeon.
Yep.
Yep.
So the afternoon of day six, the boys go out for a jog and Lara asks Lily if everything's

(01:10:51):
okay.
Lily says that she just feels like they're not getting anywhere and they're wasting
time.
When the men come back, she and Keller can't help but stare at each other because he's
all hot and sweaty and she's lecherous.
She's, Clara says, Clara says out loud, she can't wait to see how this turns out.
Lily voices that it's not going to happen, but internally she says she wishes that it
would because it would go a long way at resolving the tension between them.

(01:11:14):
Would it?
I don't think it would.
I don't think so.
No.
She immediately goes up to her room to text Timmy Tuna finally and let him know that she's
alive on day six.
If this was you and you went six days and I hadn't heard from you, I would have, I would
be on a plane.
I would have been on a plane after the first 24 hours.

(01:11:36):
Exactly.
Exactly.
I was fucking kidding, but I just, okay.
This is where we've said fully nine pages of notes ago that their rooms are a Jack and
Jill situation and there's not really privacy.
This is the first time it comes up and I kind of forgot what was happening because she goes

(01:11:59):
to her room to check her phone, but Keller's in the bathroom and he's like, whoa, what
about privacy?
What about it?
What about it?
Like you're in the bathroom, she's in her room.
I don't understand the problem here.
It was just very weird.
The whole door situation on the bathrooms was so weird, but I guess that's what I'm saying

(01:12:22):
as one of the ways that it manifested that this book doesn't really fleshed out for me
from an environment perspective, like that N64 dungeon vibe because this scene was jarring
because I didn't believe the environment that was told to me like 150 pages ago.
Also, this is the first time you've been in your room when he's in the bathroom in six

(01:12:44):
days.
That's what I'm saying.
I don't buy it.
I don't buy it.
So then they go on, maybe it's when she was talking about, but she wishes that they could
just get it on and get some attention out, but she tells us at some point, she hasn't
even been able to masturbate because like there's no privacy in the rooms.

(01:13:06):
And I'm like, show me that show me lying awake in bed, being able to literally hear
Keller breathe because the door is open.
Yeah, because I don't believe that you can't take care of yourself.
Like you're not in the same room.
No, exactly.
And it's a castle.
You have stone walls.
But yeah, but somehow you can't like I just, it doesn't make sense.

(01:13:27):
No, it doesn't.
So anyway, Keller is like, wow, I'm about to shower and you're like right there.
Privacy is dead.
And she's like, oh no, I was just leaving, but she can't help but like rake her eyes
over his almost naked form.
And he's like, oh, you looking, ogling at me reminded me that you've been granted access

(01:13:50):
to the informative.
So tomorrow I'll start sending you the gossipy part of the morning news that the king gets
briefed on, which is totally made up.
Like I don't understand how she doesn't see that.
Also even in Bridgerton that has nothing to do with like, maybe it does.
I don't remember.
I guess the queen does know about Lady Whistle Down, but like the king's not going to get

(01:14:11):
briefed on the gossip in town.
Right.
And like, I can't tell if Lily thinks that this is real or not because I can't tell
either because she reads like two of them and she is into it.
Yeah.
And she's like, oh my God, this is so real.
And I'm like, you're an idiot.

(01:14:31):
Also is Keller writing these?
Yes.
Okay.
I mean, he's got to be.
He has to be.
It's just so dumb.
So anyway, Lily is lingering.
She's like, oh cool about that.
And Keller's like, so you're going to stay and watch or like, are you going to get the
fuck out?
And she's like, oh no, I'm just leaving.

(01:14:52):
And then she has a conversation with Timmy Tuna via text.
And really the only thing here is that he asks whether they fucked yet.
She and Keller and she says not a very deep friendship she has with Timmy Tuna.
Back with Keller in the shower.
He tells us that Bryn Maw warned him during their run together about his attraction to
Lily Bryn Maw essentially told Keller to tread carefully, but Keller tells us that he's firmly

(01:15:16):
in the Lily is off limits camp because she's a princess and he is nobody.
Ain't nobody.
So day seven and Keller realizes that he needs to lighten up a bit and try something different
to get Lily to retain the information about Torsketh Orb.
So that day they go up to the roof of the castle and have a lesson there.
He talks about the countryside and uses the coastline that they can see to discuss it.

(01:15:40):
This is when he shares that his parents died in a fire in the servants quarter of the palace
when Keller was 12 and thus they have the dead parents club in common.
Oof, dark.
How did her parents die?
Car accident?
Car accident, yeah.
Okay.
So they're probably on the turnpike.
Probably wasn't on the turnpike or I4.
Yeah, right.
No, that doesn't go to Miami JK, the turnpike.

(01:16:00):
95, yeah.
So they then go on to have a question game, like no bones about it, just a regular ass
not trying to hide it or make it look like anything else question game, which I know
about that.
So I did respect that they called it what it was.
Yeah, kind of, but I was also just like.
It's weak.
Weak sauce.
Like, I mean, again.

(01:16:21):
Seven days together.
This book isn't asking a whole lot.
It's not trying very hard.
I don't know what I expected.
I just like, it was weak.
Cause she literally said, she's like, we're going to play the question game.
And I'm like, okay.
They also play it again later.
I forgot how much you hated the question game because we haven't had it in a while.
We haven't, which I think is great.

(01:16:43):
I love my favorite thing.
I love this for me.
I think I love this journey for me.
I think it has a lot to do with, we're like in several series now.
And so like the characters know each other and we don't have the question game so much.
That's true.
We're now we're back at the start back at it.
Yeah.

(01:17:04):
Anyway.
Um, so Lily asks Keller what his favorite color is.
He says black.
He asks her what her most prized possession is.
And she says her vibrator, but then says she hasn't been able to use it because there's
no privacy in the bedroom.
So that's where they have the conversation.
Okay.
She asks if he's ever had a girlfriend.
He says yes once when he was engaged and they broke off because she left the country and

(01:17:25):
he was devoted to his job, but he tells Lily that he doesn't miss her.
Ouch.
I know.
He then gets bold and asks what her favorite part of the sex club was.
She tells him the kind of control the men had over women, like the women were the most
important thing in their lives.
They cherished them, the trust between the men and women.

(01:17:47):
She then asks whether that's what Keller likes about the side of sexual experiences.
So it was kind of worded weirdly, but essentially she's like, is that control what you like
about sex?
And he tells her that he was born a protector and when a woman puts her trust in his hands,
that he would never break that trust.

(01:18:09):
And he cherishes it.
But I'll break tables and chairs and punch walls right next to your head.
It's big.
Don't worry.
You can trust me.
What did you just say?
Big Tam Tam energy.
Oh, I was like, what's a Tim Tam?
It's like candy.
Tim Tam's are candies.
I knew it.
I knew Tim Tams are candies and I was confused.

(01:18:31):
It is big Tam Tam energy.
Yeah, they are Tim Tams.
I didn't know if they were Tam Tams or Tim Tams or Tim Tams.
They're Tim Tams.
Tim Tams.
Timmy Tuna.
Tim, Tim, Tammy Tune.
Wow.
Okay.
I'm at the question game, his last question is why she got her clip here.

(01:18:52):
And she says she wanted to do it just for her to have a little something extra when she's
having fun because she loves sex so much.
Cool.
Lily then tries to put the moves on Keller in a very obvious way and he tells her that
sex is not happening between them.
They both agree that it would be great because there's so much energy, but there's too many
complications and unknowns.
Keller tells her, quote, if I have one taste, I know I won't be able to stop.

(01:19:17):
And I just like, this is where it starts reading in Selly to me because he's like,
no, I can't have you.
You're too good for me.
But in his internal monologue, he's like, she's so hot.
My dick is so hard.
I want to put my cock in her mouth.
And it's just like, whoa, brother.
Whoa.
Yeah.
It's, I like his one liners, but I hate him.

(01:19:41):
I know.
Well, in that, that coupled with like the, oh, I was engaged once, but I don't miss her.
I'm like, then, wow, I need a whole lot more information about that because that seems very
heartless because he is heartless.
Yeah.
He's just creepy and controlling.
But also is just a poor servant.

(01:20:05):
I'm just a poor servant boy.
Except in the bedroom where I'm yawking.
Okay.
We'll get there.
We'll get to it in part two.
Sorry, guys.
Oh, no, that's not in this part.
No.
I didn't check the chapters on this.
I literally just read 50%.

(01:20:25):
I was like, I love it.
So I wouldn't talk about it.
They have some really boring training to cool off and then they do another round of questions.
But this is really like Lily just asking him questions, not the other way around, which
I thought was weird.
She says that too.
She's like, you don't get to ask me anything because you know me.

(01:20:46):
No, he doesn't.
Oh, that's so weird, especially after what happens later.
Yeah.
She's straight up is like, I'm going to ask you because you're a blank page.
But that's because he's a beige crayon, babe.
You can ask him as many questions as you want.
Kelly is not going to grow a personality.
No, no.
So her first question is what's one thing that he misses about his parents and he tells

(01:21:09):
her their hugs, not just for him, but for each other because they truly loved each other.
Lily shares that that's what she misses about her parents as well.
She shares how her mother would squeeze her hand three times to tell her she loved her.
Then they share how they both have dreams about their parents sometimes and it feels
cruel when they wake up and they're not there.
They would both rather not dream about them at all or dream at all period than have that

(01:21:32):
possibility.
Wolf, I got dark in here.
Right.
Then she asks what the most embarrassing thing Kelly has done in front of the king was and
he shares that before he took his role of secretary, he went through all of the roles
of the castle so that he would understand them better and be better at his job as secretary.
During his stint as a server, he spilled really hot soup on King Theo's lap and like scalded

(01:21:55):
him.
There was no lasting damage.
There was no lasting damage.
Well, we don't know that he was done having kids.
That's true.
I think you said this in our debrief, but I think this was meant to make Kelly more
human, but it really misses the mark for me.
It misses the mark for me too.

(01:22:18):
Lily's last question is how Kelly would court somebody he's interested in.
He says that he would introduce her to his poems to which Lily exclaimed, great, so you're
hot and sensitive.
Fantastic.
I'm not trying to knock anybody, but if somebody is trying to court me and the first thing
they come at me with is a book of poems that they wrote that has the same energy as somebody

(01:22:42):
coming over to my house with their guitar and singing at me for an hour.
I was just going to say that.
That's exactly where I was going.
No, thank you.
No, sure.
Yeah.
No, you're so good at this.
Oh my God, I love your voice.
And it's always that one.
You can make it now.
Right.

(01:23:02):
I can't move the show along, I cannot snap with my left hand.
Move the show along.
Right.
So they both admit that they had fun during the day and they end with a hug.
Oh.
Great.
That night, Keller has a night terror about the night his parents died in a fire.
Lily wakes him up and he tackles her to the bed, not really knowing where he is at first,

(01:23:25):
but quickly comes to himself and is mortified that he might have hurt her.
But really all he did was grab her roughly by the arm, so she's like literally fine.
They sit on the edge of his bed and she asks if he wants to talk about it and he says no.
So she asks if he wants to talk about something else and he says no.
She asks if he wants to lie down together and he says no, go back to bed.

(01:23:47):
Big Lenovo vibes.
He doesn't want you.
Get out of my room.
I'm embarrassed.
I'm embarrassed and I can't close the door because it's broken.
All right, day eight guys, we are getting close to day 10.
Jesus.
So Keller's back to being a funny daddy and they're having training in the regular interrogation

(01:24:09):
room.
Lily says that's not fair and she thought they were finally getting somewhere, but Keller
shouts at her saying, quote, take a seat, shut your mouth and just listen.
Okay.
Once more with feeling.
She's a princess.
You can't talk to her like that.
Yeah.
If I was one, if I was Lily, I would be like, all right, I'm done.
I'm going to be taught by somebody else or you can fucking watch your mouth.

(01:24:32):
Nobody talks to me like that.
No, princess or not.
You don't talk to her like that.
No, exactly.
Dom or not.
Like I'm not convinced that that's appropriate Dom behavior.
It's not appropriate Dom behavior.
Like we get this toxic thing of these Dom's being written that are really just very aggressive
angry men.
Correct.
But then they're Dom's.
I'm like, that's not, that doesn't have to be.

(01:24:54):
No, it really doesn't have to be.
Well, and it's like, it's, I think, wildly missing the nuanced point.
Yeah.
So anyway, later Lily talks with Lara again and says that Keller's avoiding her.
Lara says that he's trying to protect himself and Lily should think about whether she's

(01:25:14):
seriously considering staying before she does anything about that.
The insinuation is that she could not let Kelly withdraw if she was serious about staying.
But then Lily gets a text from Keller with the informative saying he forgot to send it
over that morning.
Lara plays along that she's also read this, but we learned that it's about a fisherman
in a town whose wife is cheating on him with another fisherman, which is tearing the town

(01:25:38):
apart and might lead to a cod shortage.
Cool.
Lily thanks Lara for her perspective and time and gives her a hug before they head back
to lunch.
I'm like, okay, we're, this is, Lara is being presented as a confidant when she is staff
worse staff that you are not paying girl.

(01:25:59):
No.
Not your friend.
No, but she had a friend.
So because we talk about books where they don't have any friends, she had a friend.
She just forgot about that friend immediately.
Yeah.
Now we have a new friend of convenience.
I wish that she was talking to Timmy too now more because that's like, she owns a business
with him.

(01:26:20):
Come on.
Right.
Like you're not getting updates on your, how your business is going girl.
Like when I get into this conversation.
No.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
So during lunch, Lily is given an etiquette lesson.
She's got a cup of water balanced on her head and the idea is that she should be able
to eat her entire lunch without spilling a drop of water.

(01:26:41):
During this exchange, Keller has a lot of fucking emotions and when Lily goads him, he
literally slams his fist on the table, startling Lily and tells her to be quiet and not to swear.
Lily eventually realizes that he's trying to gain control over her to gain control over
how he's feeling over last night.
And so she plays along and goes into a submissive state, even using the words sir.

(01:27:05):
And like my, my problem with scenes like this is that she's still doing all of the emotional
labor.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And even like the jumps that she made to come to this conclusion, I didn't buy either.
I think he's just being controlling because that's who he is and he doesn't have any emotional
capacity.
Right.
Like being controlling is cute when you are like sexually attracted to somebody, but

(01:27:29):
like you're not going to be sexually attracted like all of the time in a relationship and
that controlling thing is going to get old really fucking quick.
But, but to that point, she is into this.
Like he puts the cup of water on her head and is like, if you slouch, you're going to
get wet and her internal monologue is like, as if I'm not already.
And I'm like, why though?
He's just yelling at you.

(01:27:51):
Yeah.
I don't buy it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I'm with you.
I'm with you.
But somehow she's really good at the etiquette thing.
And after lunch, she invites Keller for a walk.
She intentionally wears no bra during this walk and a crop top.

(01:28:13):
Even though it's like sub Arctic outside, but okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
It's fine.
Are you cold or not?
She's not.
She's not.
It's fine.
As they walk, she tries to go to Keller more and he tells her quote, you don't care about

(01:28:34):
this country, this role.
You just care about falling into my bed.
He tells her that she doesn't have to try to get under his skin because she's already
there, that all he can think about is how much he wants to fuck her.
So then Lily's like, so let's do that.
But then Keller like, Keller's like, oh, no, no, it's not my job to fuck you.
It's my job to repair you for queendom.
And she's like, it can be both dude.
And he's like, no, once you're in my bed, I won't be able to let you out.

(01:28:58):
And as queen, that can't be a thing because you can't be with somebody like me as a queen.
And she's like, why are you making decisions for me?
Oh, so she's going to be queen.
She can do whatever she wants.
That's the thing.
Oh my God.
That's the fucking thing.
But I think because they're treating her as like basically a child in this situation,
like they don't see that they're incapable of seeing that possibility.

(01:29:21):
No.
And is this where they have the weird conversation when he's like, my blood's not the same as
yours because I'm just a humble servant.
And I'm like, who are you?
I think it's that somewhere, but he that gets more and more pronounced.
And like even in a conversation that he's about to have with King Theo, like there's
a lot of like blood heritage related like verbiage that just gives me the ick.

(01:29:47):
Yeah.
Also, it also just doesn't jive with like who were shown the King to be because he seems
very liberal.
So like, and then the conversation they're going to have doesn't even matter.
Like these are all just like self-imposed structures that Keller has put on himself.
Well, but I question that because it's like he's getting it from somebody, right?
Which like I have to assume is his parents, but his parents are getting it from somebody.

(01:30:09):
So if King Theo is like super chill, then Queen Katla has to be the one bringing the
hammer down, right?
Like they're not just like making this shit up.
That's true.
That's true.
It's got to come from somewhere.
But then this conversation that we're going to talk about right now or later, whatever
conversation he has with the King later is wild.
And I'm like, so where does he stand?

(01:30:31):
Yeah, I don't, I don't fucking know, man.
And like going back to like the whole like royal blood thing, like I've just never bought
into the idea that because you were born into a specific family or better, especially not
probably inbred royal families, like that just that dog don't hunt with me.
And so like for Keller to be like, your blood is better than mine.
And I'm just filthy.

(01:30:52):
I'm like, okay, Voldemort.
Like why don't you slowly roll that?
Oh, so I don't think he believes that.
I think it plays into this like fantasy that he has, which is kind of gross.
But anyway, that night, the King calls Keller in the middle of the night and tells him there's

(01:31:13):
been another leak and that Lily's name has been dropped to the press.
We learned that a man named Henrik has been stepping in for Keller while Keller's gone.
So Keller asks whether the King suspects that Henrik could be the leak, but the King is like,
no, he's not, drop it.
So the King goes on to tell Keller to give Lily the comfort that she needs in order to

(01:31:34):
be able to like push her to learn this stuff and make a decision in their timeline.
Theo is immediately onto the fact that Keller like likes Lily and doesn't seem to have a
problem with them being together.
They both agree that she's not ready to move into the main palace yet.
And so they will stay at Harrogate a little longer.
It felt gross to me that the King was like, just comfort her.

(01:31:56):
Just give her the comfort she wants.
I'm like, what are you telling him to do exactly?
Yeah, that was a weird conversation.
I'm like, brother, are you telling him to like, dick her down?
Like I just don't.
And that's where I was like, do you know how he's interpreting this?
And is that really what you mean?
Yeah.

(01:32:17):
I mean, on the other hand, like fuck her, get her pregnant.
She's got to stay like, sure.
Again, manipulate her.
I mean, like, yeah, you're the King.
You need this to happen.
I think it would be a much more interesting conversation if the King was like, yeah, manipulate
the fuck out of her.
And then that would be the central tension.
That would be far more interesting.
And he's trying to avoid manipulating her.

(01:32:38):
Right.
Yeah.
Anyway, we're on day nine.
And in the morning, Keller briefs Breimer about his conversation with the King.
Lily overhears, but they deflect when Lily asks what kind of torture training they have
in store for her today and whether they can just have fun instead.
Keller's like, yeah, sure, we can just have fun.
What'd you have in mind?
And so she's like, OK, well, I want to go to the hot springs and then I want to do some

(01:32:58):
baking and then I want to play a national card game called crazy cuts.
And we can like talk about facts and figures while we do those things.
And Keller's like, sure.
So sure, Jen, cue the hot spring scene.
There's always one.
There's always a hot spring scene.
And as soon as he brought up the hot springs, I was like, OK.
Yeah.
There's going to be a masked ball later too or in the next.

(01:33:20):
Oh, I'm sure.
So they walk to this hot springs and it's weird because they show up and Keller's like, OK,
we went here and now let's go home.
And I'm like, how did you not think that you were going to not get in to the hot spring?
He's like shocked that she wants to swim.
Yeah.
Because she's like immediately naked and getting into the water and he's like, fuck.

(01:33:44):
How did I not see this coming?
I don't know.
You didn't see it coming either, bro.
I saw it coming 100 pages ago.
I know who could have known.
So they both end up getting into the hot water and Lily tries to engage Keller sexually,
but he again tells her that this is a bad idea and they're not doing that.

(01:34:06):
Somehow Lily gets them to agree to describing her breasts with a different adjective for
every single bit of etiquette that she can like, yammer off correctly.
And so they do that.
And as he's like talking about her boobs, he's touching her too.
But like nothing more happens.
It's super cock blocky.
It's super cock blocky.

(01:34:27):
And just like, OK, I.
Gentle listener, you have to believe me when I say when I say it out loud, I hear how creepy
the scene is.
But in the moment it works.
In the moment it's pretty hot.
Yeah.
That's how I feel about a lot of this book.
Yes, exactly.
On the face of it, it's creepy.

(01:34:47):
But in the moment, it scratches the edge.
Yeah.
Who's this Megan Quinn does deliver these ones?
That's what I was saying earlier in the debrief.
I'm like, I'm here for the chemistry.
I just don't like them.
But like, yeah, I'm also into it.
Right.
I'm here for the physical chemistry when they give in to their sexual desires.
Yeah.
Yes.

(01:35:08):
That's a good way to phrase it.
So they go back to the crumbling palace and they start to cook.
And even though they're focused on baking, there's a lot of touching going on.
It's like, Keller won't have sex, but once the clothes are back on, he's much more comfortable
and he's fine with being a little bit possessive.
Which feels to me like a little gaslighty and controlling.

(01:35:32):
It's super gaslighty.
Well, and then we get that scene later that they like basically have sex.
And then he won't kiss her later.
And I'm like, okay, you're so confusing.
It's so gaslighty, which is none of this part.
So you can cut that out.
But like, what?
But like, what are you?
What are you?
A paid hooker?
Like you're not going to kiss.

(01:35:52):
Okay.
I don't kiss.
I can do anything else.
But we cannot kiss.
I only kiss people I love.
And I haven't loved since the spring of 1948.
Okay.
Anyway, as they bake, Lily realizes that she's made this cake before.
It's the vinaigrette that I mentioned earlier.

(01:36:13):
Specifically her mother would make it every single holiday.
And then they talk about a soup that her mother would also make in brown crocs.
And this all feels very contrived.
But like, Lily realizes that her culture isn't so far away, I guess.
Yeah.
All right.
I guess.
The thing about the soup was that like, they have this part where they finish each other's

(01:36:39):
sandwiches, right?
And she's like, oh, she would sprinkle these little, and then he finishes the sentence and
says, oyster crackers on top.
And I'm like, oyster crackers is like, not the thing that I would have said.
Because it just feels like a very American, like recently evolved.
Like, how is that a tradition kind of thing?
No.
I think they finish each other's sandwiches.

(01:37:01):
And she uses a servant in these, and he's like brown crocs like this.
And he just like, yes.
Creates one out of nothing.
Yes.
I was just like, nine.
We're on day nine.
Day nine.
I can't emphasize this enough.
We're on day fucking nine.

(01:37:21):
Gentle reader.
Just wait till day 11.
So during this discussion, we're seeing it from Keller's perspective and all he wants
to do is comfort Lily and also fuck her, but realizes that he can't and says that it's
because his blood is not royal.
I'm not related to you, so we can't have sex.

(01:37:44):
That's the vibe.
I got every time you said it.
So they eat dinner later and Lily excuses herself from playing crazy cards because she's still
feeling in her feels and wants to turn in early.
She asked Keller if they could go up to the room and talk.
And so they do.
And they sit on her bed and cuddle.

(01:38:05):
I guess I can like that's fine.
I can only imagine every time Lily's like, can we go to my room and talk and Keller's
like, okay, that Laura and Brian are just like, check a lot.
Like if it were James and I and we were stuck in the house with these insufferable people,
every time they would go upstairs, I would just look at him and be like, oh yeah.

(01:38:26):
Well, yeah.
And then like later, I think it's the next part.
Primers like you only care because you're fucking her and he's like, no, I'm not.
I'm like, you cannot blame this man for thinking that you guys have no chill.
You have no chill and it's a very small house.
Yeah.
It's a very small crumbling castle.
Okay, but also like I hate this love bombing where he's like, we can't be together, but

(01:38:50):
we can snuggle while we talk about your feelings like no girl.
Sit across the fucking room better yet go outside and call her on the phone.
Yeah, don't go to her bedroom.
Yeah.
It is love bombing.
So as they snuggle, she tells them about all of the other things that she's realizing

(01:39:11):
about her childhood are clearly from Torskethorp.
Then she says this weird thing and this is why I've been keeping track of the days.
She says, quote, I just feel so alone.
If it weren't for you, Keller, I'd be lost.
It means so much to me that you're taking your time with me, that you're patient.
And although sometimes you lose your temper, you continue to try to teach me and show you
what my life could be.

(01:39:31):
End quote.
It just doesn't feel like they're that close.
Also a few things here.
He's not taking his time with you.
He's paid to be here.
He has to be here, which he reminds you of daily.
He isn't patient at all.
He's broken multiple things around you because he is impatient.

(01:39:53):
And he's not trying to show you what your life could be.
He's trying to show you what your life will be should you take the throne.
Right.
Well, and I don't understand how she feels less alone with him because he's done nothing
but alienate her.
Like there's not a true emotional bonding there.

(01:40:14):
If anything, she's had more of an experience of being seen with Lara.
I agree.
It is only with Lara that I feel like there is any of this not feeling so alone because
he hasn't done anything to engender this trust or safety other than being basically
a bodyguard.
Right, exactly.
While simultaneously being the only threat also.

(01:40:34):
Well, and not really.
Yeah.
I think this reminds me of like, oh, who would protect us if from, you know, if men weren't
around and it's like protect us from what?
Kelly, you're the problem here.
You're the problem.
Come on.
And like, I just don't feel I don't find him to be particularly compelling as a character
because he doesn't have a good use.
Right.

(01:40:55):
Like he's at once saying, oh, I'm in charge of training you.
You're not particularly good at training.
He's like, oh, but I'm also trained as being a bodyguard.
Then why do you need two other fucking bodyguards like Keller?
It should be literally anybody else on the planet that's better at those two things than
you.
Yeah.
Go back to doing your job with the king, which I'm still unclear what that was because clearly
he doesn't need you.

(01:41:16):
Also.
So Lily then asks him if in an alternate reality where she grew up in Torskathorp, if they would
have known each other and he says they would, but they wouldn't be friends.
He would just pine for her from afar and she pushes the issue and says, well, what if I
forced you to be my friend and to kiss me and stuff?
And he's like, well, I would do that, but I wouldn't go further than that because it

(01:41:38):
would be my duty not to like you're not for me.
They then both admit that even if Lily goes back to Miami, neither of them would be able
to truly have a clean break from the other.
And I'm like, you don't know each other.
It's been nine days, most of which you were fighting or chucking furniture across the room.

(01:41:58):
I just, you're not going to sit here and convince me that Keller is like more interesting, hot,
whatever than like the guys she stated in Miami.
Yeah, no, there's no way.
Because his only personality is rage or like a Torskathorp culture queen or whatever.

(01:42:22):
Culture queen.
That's why he has this job because he clearly has like a photographic memory and is the
only one who cares about the history of cod.
Okay, but that's another good question.
How are you, where are you getting this information from?
It's not like he goes into that room with a stack of books or even a computer.
He's just literally there by his own self with his own fucking brain talking ad nauseam

(01:42:45):
about Torskathorp stuff.
And I'm like, whoof.
It's wild.
It's a wild experience.
It's wild.
So Lily falls asleep on him like that.
And in the middle of the night, Keller tries to go back to his room, but they're so close
and he's so horny that it's really hard for both of them.

(01:43:07):
He gets really close to kissing her and his hand is like on her upper side, almost to
like her under boob.
And that's when he's like, I can't, I'm sorry.
She tells him that she understands, but he doesn't move.
And then his hand like moves up further and then starts fondling her boob.
And she's like, okay, cool, let's do this.
And he's like, no, I can't as he's still touching her boob.

(01:43:27):
And then finally moves away and she's like, okay, cool, you should probably leave.
But before he does, she's like, wait, can you leave your shirt?
And immediately takes off her shirt to wear it.
So he helps her into his shirt.
But as he's doing this, he's like touching the side of her boob and like all of this
stuff.
And then he admits that seeing her in his shirt is like messing with his head.

(01:43:48):
And I'm like, this guy is so fucking toxic.
He's super toxic and he really has a thing for side boob.
Which is fine.
But the whole like, we can't do this.
Okay, cool.
We're going to do this.
We can't do this.
Okay, cool.
We're going to do this.
We can't do this.
I can't.

(01:44:09):
But okay, but I think I was trying to like, because when I was reading it, I was like,
this is disgusting.
And I couldn't really put a finger on why, but I'm talking about it now as usually happens.
I know why.
It's because he's controlling the consent 100%.
Like yeah, they're only together on his terms.

(01:44:29):
That's where it feels rapey.
And then the scene later that we're not going to get to, I don't think in this part, it
just, it feels rapey on both sides.
Yeah, totally.
Neither of them actually have consent for any of this, at least not at the same time.
Exactly.
Also, the leave your shirt and then he comes over and dresses her.

(01:44:50):
I was kind of into that.
I was too.
And then it just like, he just, just was touching her weird way.
I'm just like, oh God.
I know.
It's very confusing.
So then Kelly pushes Lily back onto the bed and says that he wants to do naughty things
to her.
And she's like, I want those naughty things to happen.

(01:45:12):
And he's like, you can't handle the naughty things I want to do.
And they just go back and forth like this.
And it just feels like Keller has a lot of bravado here that's like not really being
followed up with.
He's just like, I'm super good in bed.
I'm like, no, you're not pussy, not up or shut up.
I don't believe he is good in bed and we haven't been shown that he's good in bed yet.
Nope.

(01:45:32):
We haven't shown any pleasure reciprocated, honestly, at least as far as I read.
It's the whole thing like, you're not going to like being my wife.
You're not going to like being in my bed.
Get out of here.
Get out of here.
But then he yet again pushes off and says he's going to go to bed and that she shouldn't

(01:45:53):
follow him and she doesn't.
But the last exchange goes like this.
He says, don't follow me.
I can see it in your eyes that you want to.
What just happened?
It states here.
And then Lily says, nothing even happened.
And Keller says, more than you think.
I can't.
I think it is this part from Keller's perspective.

(01:46:17):
Yes.
Yes.
Okay.
I think it was in here.
I made a note that editing got a little weird because like usually the internal monologues
are in italics like most books, but there's like four lines.
And the first one is like his internal monologue, like you don't want me, Lily, blah, blah,
blah.
And the next two lines are not in italics, but still internal monologue.

(01:46:38):
And the fourth line is back in italics.
And I was like, what is happening?
Who are you talking to?
I started reading so fast that I like was missing what was said out loud and what wasn't.
Yeah.
And it's confusing because that's the thing I said in the prologue is the breaking the
fourth wall thing.
Like you're talking directly to me as the reader, but if you're editing isn't good,

(01:47:00):
it sounds like you're talking to Lily.
Correct.
Yes.
Which is confusing because you're saying things that sound like edited as if you're
saying them to her, but then she doesn't know that information.
Right.
Or, and then she acts like she doesn't know that information later in your life.
Wait a minute.
Didn't we just talk about this?
Right.
When we didn't, I think it just was an editing problem.
Yeah.

(01:47:20):
So the day 10 has arrived and this is the last day for this part.
We start with the next informative, which is still talking about the love triangle in
the fishing town.
We then see Lara and Lily practicing the specific type of embroidery that Lily's mother Margaret
was good at.
It turns out that Lily is kind of a natural and we get a TLDR recap of the morning, but

(01:47:41):
I just, we really didn't need that either.
Like, I don't need to spend every, like I thought we were, oh great.
Later in the day.
No, we still got a recap of the morning.
Yep.
Every single second you get to see.
Yeah.
They talk about Margaret and how when she died, people lined up at the palace and gave
like tons of flowers.
And Lara says that pride is a funny thing in reference to Margaret and the queen, that

(01:48:04):
people in the country are very prideful almost to a fault.
Lily says that she can see that in them as well and Keller seems to take that as a pointed
remark.
They relate this back to Margaret and her mother because they were both too prideful
to mend the bridge, which is why Margaret only ever talked to King Theo.
It's also so weird that like people are aligning the streets after she died with flowers, but
no one called Lily or checked on her.

(01:48:26):
Right.
And I'm like, okay, so you had this like spat with Margaret, like you couldn't follow
up with your fucking granddaughter.
Like, yeah, I don't know why I feel like, and I don't, I don't want this to happen, but
I just have this bad feeling that they're going to make Queen Katla just like a total
bitch.
Yeah, which is going to be such a cop out.

(01:48:47):
Yeah.
So this is again, when Lily says that she's angry because she believed for her entire
life that she didn't have any other family outside of her parents and that there was
even so much time after her parents died.
And now she doesn't understand why she was left in the dark.
Yeah, girl.
But yeah, and we never get an answer to this because she gets a text from Timmy Tuna in
that moment saying that she's famous.

(01:49:09):
He sends her an article about specifically her and how she was from Miami with the bikini
truck, blah, blah.
And now she's a princess.
This prompts Keller to call the king and fill him in.
During this conversation, they agree that Lily should still stay at the rundown Harrogate
Palace, even though privacy is not going to happen for her anymore.
Hopefully everybody knows her name, where she came from, etc.

(01:49:30):
They push Lily on whether she's made a decision about whether she'll stay.
And she's like, well, I feel like there's a whole part of this being royal thing that
I need to experience like outside of Harrogate and I can't make a decision without that.
So they agree that they'll spend a little bit more time there while they prepare statements
to the press and a welcome ceremony so that it doesn't feel like they're rushing to welcome

(01:49:51):
Lily.
You are though.
You are though.
Why didn't you have this planned?
Like, I just, you had no statement.
I, why?
Why?
It's a horribly run country.
Truly.
But at that point, when all of that is ready, then they'll take her to the main castle
and the castle.
The main palace to introduce her.
The cattle and the castle.

(01:50:13):
Before they hang up, Lily asks King Theo if he'll show her the embroidery pieces that
he has from her mother.
He tells her that he will show her those as well as her mother's old room and possessions.
When they hang up with the king, Brymar is mad because he sees himself as the head of
security and thinks that the decision that Keller and the king made is reckless and puts
them all in danger.
He seems to think that it won't be long before people guess where they are and start coming

(01:50:34):
to Herrigate to see Lily.
Yeah.
The rest of the day is tense because of this fight and later that night, Lily goes to check
on Keller and see if he's okay, but he essentially stonewalls her again.
He tells her that he's busy.
He tells her that he's trying to do his best for her by pushing her away and he insists
that he knows her.
But she throws back that if he did know her, he would know that she doesn't give a flying

(01:50:54):
fuck about his status or how rich he is.
And that alone tells her that he doesn't know anything about her.
And for me, I'm like, of course he doesn't know you because you've known each other for
less than two weeks.
I'm shocked.
It's been nine and a half days.
That night in the middle of the night, a large crash wakes the entire castle.
Keller grabs Lily and hides her under the bed with himself as a human shield while Lara

(01:51:17):
and Brymar clear the rest of the castle.
When they do so, they realize that it was just a window that was forced open by the wind
and shattered.
Keller tells Lily to go back to sleep, but Lily says that she can't because adrenaline
is coursing through her body.
So she ends up straddling Keller on a chair that he's sitting on.
Oh yeah, I didn't like this.
She tells him quote, never in my life have I ever had someone treat me the way you do.

(01:51:42):
You're the night I never knew I needed.
You offer me safety and solace.
Just being in your arms makes me feel more comfortable than anywhere else on this planet.
And quote, and my note here is just this is so fucking crazy.
It's insane.
Are you fucking kidding me?
She's never been in a healthy relationship.
The love bump.
This isn't a healthy relationship.
Are you fucking kidding?

(01:52:03):
She's never been in one, ever, including this one.
She goes on to say quote, you make me whole Keller.
You make me feel safe.
And quote, I'm like, what the fuck is happening?
How does he make you feel?
I just, how?
So this ends up in them dry humping and then having basically a mutual masturbation session

(01:52:25):
where Keller rubs his dick on her until they both come.
Afterwards he cleans her up and she loves the aftercare and he finally kisses her.
It's barely aftercare.
She asks him to stay and he says, if I stay, I'm going to fuck you.
And that would be going too far and that they've already gone too far.

(01:52:46):
Even though she's upset, she's like, okay, that's fine.
Go back to bed.
And then he kisses her once more.
Good night before going to his room.
And that's where we're going to end part one, guys.
It's so hot and cold.
Spoiler alert.
The next chapter, he's back to ignoring her.
Oh my God.

(01:53:08):
Just like, I really wish that she was having more of a conversation with Timmy Tuna, who
knows her because I feel like he would be the sassy gay friend that's just like, girl,
what, why are you still in the bed?
He's like, you need some perspective.
Oh my God.
Yeah.

(01:53:28):
Wow.
So yeah, tune in two weeks from now when we finish the book and we'll do our ratings.
And we'll see where this goes.
I have no idea what my rating is at this point.
I don't either because like in the reading of it, I'm having a great time.
Yeah.
I'm highly entertained.
Talking about it, I'm just like, this is a fucking wild experience.

(01:53:50):
Because it's insanity.
It's insanity.
None of it makes sense.
The characters are not likable, but I'm also really here for it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's trashy.
It's trashy for sure.
It's very trashy.
It's fanficy for sure.
Because it's Prince's Diaries fanfic.

(01:54:10):
Yeah.
That's, yeah, you're not wrong.
All right, fam.
That's where we're going to end part one.
Those are our thoughts on part one of Royally Not Ready by Megan Quinn.
Thank you as always for joining us on this journey.
Let us know what you think on the socials.
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Goodreads at Spice Traders Pod.
And if you like our podcast and want more, consider joining our Patreon where we release

(01:54:32):
Patreon exclusive episodes on our off weeks.
And if you really, really like us, drop us a review wherever you listen, but until next
time, we'll see you.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.

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