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Royal Replicas by Michael Pierce
Royal Replicas
Royal Replicas Series
Science Fiction, Dystopian
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
July 10, 2017
Paperback, Kindle
414
"Princess Amelia is dead... and one of you will replace her."
Seventeen-year-old Victoria Sandalwood has served the Duke and Duchess all her life. Over the years, she’s learned to make do with what she has and endure her surrogate father’s awful punishments. She dreams of escape, but never expected it to come in the form of a message from the Queen of Westeria.
Victoria learns that she’s the Queen’s daughter, the younger sister to Princess Amelia, and it’s time to come home and claim her birthright. When she arrives, she discovers she’s not the only one who received the royal message.
Victoria must compete with six other girls to earn the affection of both the Queen and a princely suitor… and to replace the secretly deceased Princess Amelia. If she fails to win the crown, Victoria may just have to fight for her life…
Royal Replicas is the first book in a YA dystopian series. If you enjoy courtly intrigue, heart-pounding adventure, and sweet romance, then you’ll love this captivating story. Perfect for fans of Kiera Cass, Bella Forrest, and Veronica Roth.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery 
As popular as The Bachelor TV series and The Selection by Kiera Cass are there is no reason why an author should not be able to play off this theme of rags to riches while finding love through a competitive process. Michael Pierce, in Royal Replicas, uses Kiera Cass’s The Selection as a template for his futuristic, dystopian world with kings and queens that have reshaped society after the fall of America as we know it. To continue her family’s control, the queen creates clones of her only daughter who is ill with a terminal disease. At birth, these identical sisters, are sent to be raised by families in different districts; some good and others abusive who treat them worse than servants. When the clone sisters come of age they are brought back to the palace to compete for the hand in marriage to Prince Byron, from a neighboring country, and the identity of Princess Amelia. With its unique plot twists Royal Replicas is not a bad knock off, however it earned three stars from me because of its flat, predictable characters and stilted dialogue.
The heroine is the clone, Victoria, who was severely abused by the head of a well to do family she was placed with. He treated her like a servant and made his two daughters watch as he punished she took for their misdeeds as well as her own errors. While this background is supposed to make her a gritty yet compassionate person, her fight seems lackluster and her compassion seems canned. This also seems to be the case for a number of other characters, who have the 
potential to be more developed and make the plot fuller and more intriguing. The other aspect of the story that really takes away from the characters is dialogue that feels like you are watching an elementary school play. Just because the audience is YA/teen does not mean that the dialogue needs to be dumbed down or appear as if the characters are trying to act mature.
Even with these issues Royal Replicas is an easy read that entertains. The cliffhanger, while anticipated and staged feeling, does make you want to know what happens in the next book, Royal Captives, released October 13, 2017.
Tanya’s love for books has been a lifelong passion that she likes sharing with others. Reading is also the thing that relaxes her after a day of juggling the many responsibilities that come with being being wife to an amazing man, mother to four great kids spread around the world, business manager, and farm hand on their place in southwest Missouri; home to Akaushi cattle and a menagerie of pygmy goats, horses, chickens, dogs and cats.
