Journalist Rebecca Armitage steps into the literary fiction arena with her debut novel, The Heir Apparent, taking a sliver of royal history and spinning it into a modern monarchy, complete with heirs, spares and scandals that could rival those of Britain’s real royal family.
Set in 2023, the novel reimagines a Britain ruled not by the Windsors but by the House of Villiers, a lineage rooted in the real-life royal mistress favoured by King Charles II in the 1600s. Into this alternate monarchy steps 29-year-old Lexi Villiers – Princess Alexandrina – a twin and technically third in line to the throne due to being born mere minutes after her brother.
Forever marked by her mother’s death in a tragic boating accident, Lexi has spent the last 11 years living in self-imposed exile, practising medicine in Hobart. Estranged from her family and clinging to her anonymity, Lexi is far removed from the gilded world she was born into, and likes it that way.
The Heir Apparent: all change
Everything changes in a single, shattering moment. In the aftermath of a devastating accident involving her father and brother, Lexi finds herself propelled from third in line to the title historically reserved for a male successor, the heir apparent.
Because no son will ever be born with a stronger claim, she now stands as the sole surviving descendant of the Prince of Scotland, ‘the tip of the Villiers’ spear’, destined to take the crown after her grandmother, the Queen. If she refuses to step into the role, one man waits to seize the opportunity: her uncle Richard, a character written as evil as a Disney villain.
As a seasoned royal journalist, Armitage draws heavily on her professional insight to make palace politics and media gossip feel plausible, with the parallels to the House of Windsor unmistakable.
Lexi’s mother, Isla, exudes shades of Princess Diana while her father Frederick bears more than a passing resemblance to Charles. Lexi often feels like the Harry figure of the Villiers family, determined to carve out a life outside the royal family, and the first-person narration reinforces this.
These echoes are deliberate and playful, giving the novel an instant familiarity while tempting the reader to question what is fiction or based on real-life events.
The Heir Apparent: sliding doors
The plot unfolds across alternating timelines, with present-day chapters intersected by flashbacks. This structure allows for several sliding door moments which Armitage leans into as Lexi moves closer to decide her future. If Lexi hadn’t been present at certain key events, or hadn’t glimpsed something seemingly minor, the entire course of Villiers history might have twisted differently.
There’s also a tender thread of romance woven throughout. On the first page, Lexi nearly shares her first kiss with Jack, an Aussie man with Hugh Jackman charm that she’s quietly loved for years.
Then later in the novel, a scene between them carries a faint heart flutter of Jo and Laurie from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, capturing that bittersweet ache of almost-love. Whether she can hold onto that part of her life while stepping into her royal duty becomes one of the novel’s emotional stakes.
With her experience in covering the life and times of the royal family, Armitage crafts a compelling fiction loosely based in truth, however, it’s easy to get frustrated when Lexi walks ‘unrecognised’ through a dense crowd after her own brother’s royal wedding, and later, through international airports.
Would sunglasses and a hoodie really be enough to disguise Her Royal Highness from paparazzi in the 2020s? These moments break the otherwise well-constructed world.
Still, The Heir Apparent succeeds as a fun royal chick-lit with a bingeable storyline that taps into the same international appeal and public fascinations that surround The Crown on Netflix.
Sure to be a holiday hit, it’s an easy read and an emotionally charged imagining of what royalty could look like through a millennial lens.
