What an amazing fairy tale come to life on the pages of this wonderful story. Annaliese and her family take on a journey to rebuild the beautiful country of their ancestry. A wonderful read

OMGOODNESS what a great book. Just true escapism and a modern day fairy tale. The main character Annie is in for a big surprise.. Annie thinks her life is all settled being a divorced mother of 2 children working her insurance job. Her 2 sisters also keep her on her toes. One day she realizes she is being followed by 3 men. Being a woman of action she confronts them and finds out they mean no harm. Quite the contrary. They have been looking for her because they believe she is the heir to the throne of the small nation of the Duchy of Saint Gilbert. Suddenly she is Her Royal Highness Grand Duchess Annalise Jacqueline Terese of Saint Gilbert. She has decisions to make. Should she accept and try to get the Duchy back in shape or decline and live her regular life. Whatever she decides will affect her entire family. The only complaint I have is I finished the book. I sure hope this is the beginning of a series! I want to go back to the Duchy of Saint Gilbert!

I love anything Mariah Stewart writes and this is no exception. It is a fairytale escape and i found it very enjoyable.

I absolutely could not stop reading this! I absolutely loved it! I could so see this as a movie. Love, love, loved this! I absolutely love the guess what your royal trope!
I just reviewed The Head That Wears the Crown by Mariah Stewart. #TheHeadThatWearstheCrown #NetGalley
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The Head That wears the Crown is a fun fairytale read. Annaliese is a divorced mother of two children Juliette and Ralphie. They live In Philadelphia. I enjoyed the many references to Philadelphia since I am from the area. She is next line to rule Saint Gilberti after finding out that her Great Grandmother was the Grand Duchess before the war. This is a cute read about family, being royal and some romance. Thank you to NetGalley and Montlake for the E-ARC. This is my own opinion.

“The Head That Wears The Crown- Mariah Stewart
This book is perfect for any little girl who dreamed of being a princess living in her own castle. This unlikely fantasy has come true, and is a surprising reality for Annaliese. When she discovers, at age 45, that she is heir to the throne of a tiny European country on a small island, she is frantic and overwhelmed. After she reluctantly visits the tiny kingdom, she is completely entranced. ..and committed to developing the country.

Mariah Stewart introduces the “mom turned Duchess” story line in the book’s summary. Stewart builds the story as Annalise must decide whether to visit the country and accept the throne, and how to inform her two teenagers, and two sisters. Her sisters are a bit jealous… wondering why one of them was not chosen.

The book starts slowly, but quickly picks up momentum when Annalise decides to accept the crown and become the duchess of Saint Gilbert. The action picks up and gathers momentum when she is in the kingdom, and working on many ideas for new business. Annaliese meets many of the people in the castle, and learns that there are malevolent forces working to unseat her.

In the absence of a royal leader, the country has been run by a male council, domineering and skeptical of the new leader. The male council is resistant to any changes coming from a “foreign woman”. But Annaliese recognizes that the country is struggling financially, and they are desperate for ways to attract tourism and business to Saint Gilbert. Annaliese grows stronger as a character, and finds new courage and determination, as she works to manage the hostile elements.

The novel describes some very creative “magical” touches when they are in the kingdom: a soap that makes everyone look younger, the best tasting coffee anywhere, and food that looks like magazine photos while it’s growing. There are many elements of fantasy and whimsey introduced, and author Stewart makes it all work.

If you have followed “the Royals” during your life…this book is for you. Live out every royal fantasy you’ve dreamed, every handsome prince you have imagined since you first heard about “Cinderella”. “The Head That Wears the Crown” is a true Cinderella story…complete with a handsome “prince”; aka, the dashing Captain of the Guard. For a wonderful escape from today’s complexities, this book is a refreshing breath of fresh air and creativity.

Shelley Portnoy

A glorious fairytale. Great characters who blend well together and a little bit of spice among the sugar. An enjoyable read.

I absolutely loved this book. It was such fun. It had some angsty moments and a little mystery. It’s so different from other royalty books. A lot of girls want to be a princess. Annaliese, however, is 44 years old, divorced and has two teenagers. It’s a wonderful telling of a woman navigating her family and a country she’d never heard of before and is now running. The writing is amazing and the characters are fun and have great depth. I highly recommend this book. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced free copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Oh my goodness, I loved this book. Not just because Annie and Max were amazing but also because I am from Philly and knew where everything was and experienced from there. So wonderful a book and a great combo of story lines and characters. Mariah has done it again. Read this book!!!

I really loved this story about Annalise, her children Juliette, Ralph and her sister Ceil and Roe. You just have to read this book . Annalise is about to become the Duchess to another country, Read about all she does with the help of a lot of people. There is suspense and a little romance involved. A really good story and good things.

This novel promises wish fulfillment and delivers… somewhat. Annaliese “Annie” Gilberti is a forty-four-year-old divorced mother of two whose financial troubles (and life!) are upended when discovers that her late grandmother once ruled a small European country. Annie is next in line for the throne, a revelation that launches her from South Philadelphia to the aforementioned European country, Saint Gilbert.

I loved the Princess Diaries premise, but the writing and plot execution leaves A LOT to be desired. The first chapter alone reads like character building exercise. Annie breezes through her 9-5 work schedule, yearly family vacation to the Jersey Shore, hostile in-laws, cheater ex-husband, basketball opinions, how hot her seventeen-year-old son is, how hot her fourteen-year-old daughter will be, how often they all eat Italian food, who cooks the Italian food…good details, sure, but who cares? So much of the text is bogged down with irrelevant details and side comments that the reader is left twiddling their thumbs until the plot clicks back into place.

And the plot itself? Fans of cozy reads might appreciate the lack of conflict, but I personally found it underwhelming. What makes Annie qualified to rule a country she’s never heard of? Not much, and the book doesn’t seem to care enough to convince the reader otherwise.

The overall reading experience was underwhelming with only a little potential for more.

From the moment I read the outline I had to read this book and I'm so glad I did. I couldn't put it down as I fell in love with Annaliese and her difficult choice of wither or not to be the next ruler of Saint Gilbert.

The book did remind me so much of The Princess Diaries. It's my first book by Mariah but I'm sure it won't be my last as this book is so easy to read. The setting, the characters that you can't help but will make the right decision.

This book needs a sequel. Its a stunning book that made me keep reading and turning the pages. I never wanted it to end so please a sequel Mariah

I love this author, so this was an easy win when I found this on here. Did NOT disappoint.
It’s fast and the characters you will fall in love with. It's all about family.
Annie is about to become monarch of a small European island. She goes on a journey to discover citizens, landscape and ancestry, and secrets.

Annalise divorced mother of two children is just getting along with a 9-5 job. Three men start following her and she finds out her grandmother was royalty and Annie is the next in line to wear the crown and become a Grand Duchess. Most of the book is about her two sisters,two children and her best friend trying to restore the country to greatness. It was a sweet read with a little romance. I very much enjoyed it.

This book is a delightful and clever tale that brims with affection for family. Annaliese Gilberti's life takes a dramatic turn when she discovers her grandmother's history, becoming the future duchess of a European nation. The captivating story of this South Philadelphia mother of two and her family as they embark on an unexpected journey had me hooked from the first sentence to the final word. It's a journey that nobody could have ever imagined as their future.

While I loved the concept, the relatively simplistic writing/storytelling and lack of conflict made this book drag. There was too much attention to specific things (every single item of clothing) and less on tension or development of moving the story forward. Also, as someone who lives in Dubai - enough with the 'human trafficking comments' - we're just a regular city!

Ultimately a DNF for me.

I received this ARC via NetGalley. Opinions are my own.

It's as classic a trope as ever there was: an American everywoman, in this case a single mother of two teenagers, discovers that she's not quite everywoman after all—she's the heir to the throne of a tiny European nation...and they want her to take on the crown more or less right now.

I have read more than my fair share of these books—enough to seriously consider renaming my Goodreads "kings and queens" shelf "princess fantasies". (So far, I have resisted. Valiantly.) I know what to expect, and I know that the point of these books generally *is* the fantasy, and just about everything else comes second. But oh gosh, although I kept my expectations modest here, they just...weren't met.

It's two things, I think. First: worldbuilding. I should note, here, that I have historically been Very Bad at suspending disbelief (there's a reason I don't read more speculative fiction), and that if I'd put any work at all into changing that, this might have been less of a concern for me. It might be less of a concern for other readers. With that in mind...

I was really pleased to read, early on in the book, that St. Gilbert is meant to be a former Soviet Union (satellite?) country. Why? Because that's relatively uncommon in these princess-fantasy books; normally the books are all about that French-English-Italian aesthetic, and I really wanted to see how it would treat a country with a more Eastern European background. I hoped too soon: St. Gilbert is located between Switzerland and Italy, roughly (if I had to guess) between Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. Why does this matter? Because...neither of these countries touches a single Soviet country. It doesn't make any sense for St. Gilbert to be located there. It doesn't make sense that St. Gilbert—a former Soviet country with almost no international ties, located between countries that speak French and Italian and some German—would use English as its national language. It doesn't make sense that they would be convinced that there's absolutely nothing in this spectacular mountainous region that would draw tourists, leaving the country deeply impoverished. It doesn't make sense that the country doesn't seem to have a single Soviet-style building. (My mother pointed out that maybe Annaliese just doesn't notice, but I think it's more that Annaliese doesn't realise that there's a particular style of build specific to the era/regime, and that she doesn't realise it because the author doesn't take it into consideration. Even if St. Gilbert didn't sustain damage during WWII—look up Soviet architecture in Hungary and you'll see what sorts of construction they should have had.)

And that's just...how so much of the book goes. This "poor" country has a Swiss bank account that nobody but the heir (that's Annaliese!) can touch, and the council running the country has never tried to get the money out (or reach out to Annaliese, or her mother or grandmother, to get their help to do so)—even though this one bank account can basically make the country wealthy overnight. There is so little tourism in the country that there is not a single hotel or BnB, and I literally cannot think of a country where that would make sense. Tuvalu—least visited country in the world, according to the Internet—has hotels. Afghanistan has hotels. North Korea has hotels. St. Gilbert does not. Annaliese discovers a staple product that is basically magical and decides to use it to revitalise the economy, carefully controlling its distribution so that outsiders can't buy it outright—and even if I can believe that nobody in the world has noticed this magical project before, I don't understand how she's going to 1) revitalise tourism, 2) use the promise of this product to do so, but then 3) keep it out of the shops while 4) still allowing locals access to this very, very staple product. St. Gilbert can't sell their cheeses abroad because they're made from unpasteurized milk, but a quick Google is enough to tell me that all they'd need to do is age their cheeses for 60 days to sell them in the US...and there's nothing stopping them from selling cheese in the EU. Annaliese is variously called "Your Highness", "Your Grace", "my lady", "madam", and "Your Majesty". I'm not sure which is correct per their protocol, but what I *am* sure of is that they have a protocol, and they aren't following it.

And second, plot. This is all but a conflict-free book. The first half of the book involves Annaliese arriving in St. Gilbert and being pampered. A castle, a staff, the most delicious food she's ever tasted, room after room of heirlooms that have been tucked away just waiting for her return—she makes some "hmmm" sounds about updates, sure (one of her first suggestions is that the country will need more parking lots), but very little *happens*. Around two-thirds of the way in, we get the first conflict: Annaliese goes up against the council that has ruled the country for decades and has no particular reason to want to dilute their power. But she comes prepared: she whips out her proverbial flyswatter, tells them to "Yo. Slow your roll" (loc. 3666*), and has the entire council eating out of her hand in the span of a single meeting.

Around three quarters of the way in, we get to the real conflict: There is somebody in St. Gilbert who does not think an untried American should be on the throne. This is, again, a pretty classic conflict point—and the thing is, he's not *wrong*. Annaliese claims dedication to St. Gilbert, but whether or not she even has citizenship is questionable (truly—she and her sisters wonder at some point), and she says that she wouldn't become monarch if she had to give up her US citizenship, and...guys? I also would not want a monarch whose perspective is "okay, I guess I'm responsible for this country now, but my "other* country is always going to come first". It's a miracle that there is only one person in an entire country of some 600,000 people who is unhappy with the new status quo.

In short: This might make a good read for someone who wants, basically, stress-free wish fulfillment and not much by way of heft. I can see this, and perhaps its possible successors, marketed in that way—books where plot and character development and so on are beside the point, and the reader is just in it to imagine that they're a princess, or that they've inherited a tropical island, or that...uh...they're hired at the best library in the world and told that the job is theirs to shape. This is written as a standalone, but there are hints that there may be more books to come—Annaliese's sisters are both making moon eyes at specific men within a few minutes of meeting them (oh—technically this is a romance novel; Annaliese has her tall-dark-handsome guard who isn't really characterized beyond "dedicated" and "gallant", which I guess allows the reader to insert whatever characteristics they prefer—but it's a very, very small part of the book), and at the end Annaliese is wondering how to solve the next problem. I'm not sure whether hypothetical further books would follow her sisters or continue to follow Annaliese as her childhood dreams are fulfilled, but if any future books follow her sisters, I wouldn't be surprised to see extended descriptions of high-end cooking equipment and baked goods (Roe) or room after luxuriously refinished room (Ceil). But...get yourself some industrial-strength locks for whatever case you pack your disbelief away into.

And a side note... Absolute best misspelling I've seen in ages, and at least 50% of the book was worth reading for this alone: "milk toasty" (loc. 3923) instead of "milquetoast". I really hope the proofreader has a strong grasp of tenses but misses "milk toasty".

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*I read an ARC, and quotes are direct but may not be final.

The Head That Wears the Crown: A Novel by M. Stewart, published by Montlake, is a stand-alone romance novel.
Annie is a divorced mother of two with an everyday 9 to 5 job. When her world is put upside down by becoming aware her grandmother is a royal.
And Annie is about to become monarch of a small european island. She goes on a journey to discover citicens, landscape and ancestry, secrets and even the dashing captain of the castle guard.
An highly entertaining witty and fun read, excellent written and beautifully told.

I enjoyed the premise of this book, but the execution was not what I hoped. The sorry was slow to get started then seemed to drag on to the finish. I would try another book by the author, but this was not a great read.

I received this Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

As a fan of the Pincess Diaries, I always enjoy trying new royal-themed books, but sadly I must admit this one didn't cut it for me, due to the narration style and the main character's persona. Too bad.