In Julian Winters’s latest YA romance, Prince of the Palisades, the titular royal Jadon has touched down in Santa Monica, amid a media frenzy. Sent to L.A. to prove to his family that he can be the kind of prince and leader his nation Rêverie needs and not a hothead with political opinions that will land him in trouble, Jadon finds himself struggling to dodge the tabloids and falling for pink-haired classmate Reiss. Winters spoke with PW about the challenges of crafting a Black royal story, his “wholehearted” approach to romance, and the need for queer happily ever afters.
You’ve written a few romance novels. How has your relationship to the genre evolved over the course of your career?
It’s been an interesting journey. I think because of any environment that I grew up in and as far as TV, media, books, and whatnot, romance always felt like this unattainable dream for someone like me. I had no examples of what a positive happily ever after could look like for someone like me. So I dove into writing it for myself, as wish fulfillment. It’s grown over time where I realized I wasn’t alone in that thought process and lack of representation. And suddenly, this became a chance for me to give hope to people who either identify like me or felt like me throughout life. It’s no longer about me. Now it’s a chance for me to inspire others to say, just because we don’t see it for ourselves doesn’t mean that it’s not possible. And that’s why I love writing romance even more now. Because I understand the impact of giving someone else hope and healing some wounds that they may have, and encouraging them to just go forward.
Can you talk about the challenges of writing a novel about a Black royal? It doesn’t quite operate as a color-blind casting.
It was super challenging in the beginning. I had to really think about how a Black person navigates this space. It’s different when you’re seeing the British monarch and things like that [because] you’re used to that because that’s what people know. But it’s different when you’re thinking about a Black person or a person of color in any kind of position of power. The lens through which society looks at them is severely harsher than what you’d see for others. You could just even look at Meghan Markle, as an example. So I had to be cognizant of that. I had to ask, how would Jadon navigate through this space, knowing that the world doesn’t see the crown first, they see your skin color? At the beginning, it was very challenging, but I really leaned into it because this is also a chance for me to give that power back to a person of color, or just someone who wants to raise their voice and be impactful. [I wanted to] say, no matter what they see, it’s what you do at the end that’s going to make the impact.
A major struggle for Jadon is how desperately he wants the approval of his country. Why does it feel so crucial to feel loved by one’s natives?
There are a couple of reasons. One, I am an innate people pleaser. I think that bled into Jadon because I will always think of how I can make sure everyone still likes me, before I do what my gut tells me to do. Also, a lot of the inspiration for Reverie came from Marvel’s Black Panther and Wakanda—this idea of a country where, in order to remain safe, in order to maintain the society that they want, they are neutral toward the rest of the world, which means they don’t get involved in political things that have nothing to do with them. I wanted to show that with Jadon because I feel the same way. There are times as a Black American where there are things I want to speak up against. But the world that I’ve grown up in has told me stay quiet, stay in your corner, and this is how you stay safe. I hope that a lot of teens can see the battle he has inside of him between doing the thing he’s supposed to do, or saying, “Hey, I’m out. I can’t, because this is what society told me not to do. And this is how I stay in their good graces.”
The novel is interspersed with media reports that showcase how Jadon, a Black royal, is treated, vs. how other white royals are treated. How were you thinking about the media’s role in Jadon’s progression?
Social media is such a wonderful thing. It is also such a personal thing. Because you often see these headlines where if a white person does something, it’s either seen as heroic or sacrificial, but if a Black person does it, they were in the wrong, or they should not have reacted this way. They should not have stood up for themselves. They should not have said what they said. If you look at protests, the moment it involves people of color or involves a Black person, it’s, “Oh, my gosh, it’s anarchy. They’re violent. They’re angry.” But if it’s on the other side, it’s, “They’re speaking their mind, and we should stand up and hold hands and gather together.” I wanted to show how the unfair treatment can be so blatant, but I hope that people see through the headlines that I’ve written. It can be so small that you miss the microaggression but it’s there.
Main characters taking accountability for their actions show up in quite a few of your novels, including this one. Is it an intentional choice to include accountability or something that shows up as you’re writing?
It’s a little of both. With my previous novel, As You Walk on By, it definitely became a theme. Once I understood who these characters are, and their hurt, it made me sit back and think about myself. Growing up, we’re told to apologize because that’s what you’re supposed to do. And so that’s what we automatically do throughout the rest of our life. We just apologize when something’s wrong. But we never truly take accountability for what we did to actually cause the thing. With this novel, it did lead there because I kept thinking about that theme. I want teens to understand why you apologize, understand why you tried to make amends for someone, and also understand when to walk away when that person is not reciprocating.
What about Jadon and Reiss’s relationship was your favorite part to create?
I love this part of romance that is done so well which is the idea of a character who is “hole”-hearted, where you have a hole in your heart, and by the end of a story you would hope to be wholehearted, where that wound has been filled or healed in some way. That’s my favorite part of telling a romance story: how do we get from having something missing in our life to feeling like whatever was gone now has been built? For me, romance is very much about [the idea that] I don’t want this person to magically fix my life. Because what happened in my past is what has shaped me into who I am now. I do want them to be that person who has helped me heal, who has helped me get to my next step in life, and who is hopefully going on that journey with me now.
This novel contains a sex scene that portrays the experience with nuance and vulnerability. Can you talk about why it was important for you to have a queer sex scene on the page?
There are so few examples for queer teens, when it comes to sex. When it comes to consent, communication, and being in a safe space, where you’re not embarrassed by the questions you may have, or things that you may not know, and where you’re also vulnerable enough to tell people what you want and what you need, tt’s super important, especially for queer readers, to have something that they can look at and say, “Oh, this is what I should think about with my partner.” That’s such a huge thing for me: being able to give to young readers not only a really cute love story, but also something that they can take away and say, “This is how things should be. This is how I should think about things when it comes to sex, relationships, intimacy, friendships, whatever it may be.” As much as we have grown through media and TV, there still isn’t enough that specifically speaks to queer people.
A quote in your novel, “Happily ever afters aren’t for boys like me,” feels like it could extend to talking about Black queer boys and the queer community in general. How does your work challenge that narrative?
My work as a whole is me continuously trying to remind the queer community that despite what the media and everyone tries to tell you, we don’t have to act, dress, or behave a certain way in order to deserve happily ever afters. And that’s where that line came from. Jadon, and boys like him, queer people like him who have behaved poorly in the media’s eyes, who haven’t acted a certain way, who haven’t reached a level of kindness or niceness or inoffensive queerness, [are made to feel] they don’t deserve it. It’s almost like we have to prove ourselves before anyone says okay, fine, you get to [live] happily ever after. It shouldn’t be that way. It should be something you get immediately, just like everyone else, by just being yourself.
Prince of the Palisades by Julian Winters. Viking, $12.99 paper Aug. 20 ISBN 978-0-593-62442-5
