A Candy Kingdom Gone Sour

👑 The Tale of Rancid Royalty!

When The Rise and Rot of Rancid Royalty hit #1 on Amazon’s Children’s Humor list, I nearly choked on a jawbreaker. What started as a wild little candy-coated rebellion—equal parts picture book, pop satire, and powdered sugar fever dream—suddenly found itself climbing the charts. It’s been thrilling (and honestly surreal) to see so many readers embrace this syrupy satire about fake frosting, real rebellion, and one very overripe king. For a story this weird, weirdly honest, and weirdly sweet, it’s the best kind of validation.

In the world of Rancid Royalty, frosting isn’t just frosting—it’s infrastructure. Sweetness is currency. And the skies are starting to swirl with artificially sweetened clouds, pumped out by Royal Refineries built on greed and denial.

Enter King Orangello the Overripe—sticky-fingered and slogan-obsessed. A monarch who floods fountains with fudge and insists, “Candy Mountain has never been sweeter,” even as everything melts around him. When disaster strikes, he flees to Mar-a-Mango Manor in a swirl of fake frosting and fondant denial, declaring, “The rot was rigged!”

Sound familiar?

Yes, it’s a children’s book. But like many of the best ones, it’s laced with a message. Rancid Royalty is a candy-coated critique of the systems we live under, asking kids (and the grown-ups reading with them) to consider what happens when leaders hoard resources, deny responsibility, and spray everything in sparkle instead of telling the truth.

🍭 Enter Laffin’ Taffin’ Taylor

Our hero doesn’t wear a crown—she rides a peppermint hog and wields a licorice lasso.

Laffin’ Taffin’ Taylor is a half hillbilly princess, half frosted firecracker with a sweet tooth for justice. When the frosting melts, the skies curdle, and the Royals start coughing up candied lungs, it’s Taylor who steps in to lead the rebellion.

Her message? “Sparkle ain’t the same as substance—and fake sugar never lasts.”

She’s loud, she’s sticky, and she isn’t waiting around for a fairy godmother.

🌈 The World Behind the Pages

Rancid Royalty started as a picture book—but like any good empire, it expanded. The Kickstarter edition includes 20 pages of real, absurdly delightful recipes pulled from candy history, from “Molasses Mayhem Pie” to “Revolutionary Fizz.”

We also created a turn-based, RPG-style card game that brings the candy-coated chaos to life. It’s strategic. It’s competitive. It’s totally B-A-N-A-N-A-S. And yes, it’s still stupid fun long after the kids have gone to bed.

And there’s more coming. The universe is growing into:

• 🏴‍☠️ The Saltwater Taffy Sea Pirates

• 🏍️ The Acid Reflux Ridge Riders

• ☠️ The Leftovers — a tribe of expired candies and discarded flavors

Because not every revolution ends when the frosting settles.

✨ Why I Wrote This

I wrote Rancid Royalty because I was tired of being angry at the world and wanted to laugh at it instead. I wrote it because sometimes the most effective protest is wrapped in pastels and sprinkled with absurdity.

This book is for the kids who feel like the system was built without them. It’s for the adults who read it out loud and suddenly realize they’ve met King Orangello in real life. It’s for anyone who’s ever stared down a mess and thought, “Maybe I’ll clean this up—with a glitter bomb.”

📖 Read It. Share It. Eat It?

Okay, maybe not that last part. But the recipes are real, the revolution is sticky, and the story is only just beginning.

The Rise and Rot of Rancid Royalty is available now. Read it with your kids. Laugh with your friends. And remember:

The frosting may crack. But grit sticks.