Why Jennifer Remembers When Prince Lucio Needs a Queen
I just released a brand new YouTube video — Prince Lucio Needs a Queen But Jennifer Remembers — and I have to be honest with you, I could not stop talking once I started. Because this question sits at the absolute center of everything I write: what does a woman do when the world decides she is ready to be someone’s answer, and she is still in the middle of becoming her own? That is the heart of the Steel Series. That is the heart of Jennifer Gonzales. And that tension between a powerful prince who needs something and a woman who has finally stopped letting need define her? That is the story I want to dig into with you right now.
If you want the full take, watch the video on YouTube — but stay here because I am going to go places in this post that the video only touches.
The New YouTube Video: Prince Lucio Needs a Queen But Jennifer Remembers
I want to announce the new video properly before we go deeper — so here it is. Every Wednesday and Saturday I release a new YouTube video, and this one dropped fresh. The title says everything: Prince Lucio needs a queen. The Steel family saga, the kingdom of Avce, the expectations of power and dynasty — all of it demands that Lucio step up and choose someone.
And Jennifer Gonzales is in that orbit. Jennifer who has spent twenty books inside the House of Morgan world being wanted for every wrong reason. Jennifer who finally lives in Peter’s house, knows her children, and is learning to trust herself. Jennifer who is not walking into any room because a powerful man needs something from her.
The collision of those two realities — a prince who needs, and a woman who remembers she does not have to answer — is what the video explores. And it is what I want to unpack here in writing for everyone who processes story better on the page than on screen.
What Is the Steel Series and Why Does It Matter Here?
If you are new to the Steel Series, let me give you the real hook — not the marketing version, the actual emotional truth. Ten books. Secret babies with pro athletes. Fake marriages with ruthless power players. And a central promise that runs through every single story: a Steel love is forged to last.
That phrase is not just branding. It is the thesis. Every couple in this series comes together under pressure — real pressure, the kind that exposes who you actually are underneath all your careful self-presentation. Secret babies revealed at the worst possible moment. Fake arrangements that start as transactions and become the most real thing either person has ever felt. Power players who discover they cannot actually control the one variable that matters most: their own heart.
The Steel Series lives in the intersection of romance tropes that romance readers love most in 2026: secret baby romance, fake marriage, sports romance, and the billionaire who has everything except the one thing he cannot buy. If you have been hunting through BookTok recommendations looking for your next interconnected series to devour, this is the one.
And Rocking Player is completely free right now on every retailer — Apple Books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and more. That is where the saga begins, and I wrote it knowing that if I got you inside the Steel world with that first book, you would not leave until you had read all ten.
DM me the word STEEL and I will send you the complete reading order!
Who Is Prince Lucio in Powerful Prince?
Let me talk about Lucio specifically because the video gets into his character in a way that surprised even me when I was recording it. Lucio Steel is royalty — not metaphorically, actually royalty. He carries the weight of a dynasty, expectations that were placed on him before he was old enough to have an opinion about them, and a future that has already been partially written by people who are not him.
He needs a queen. That is the situation. Not because he is shallow or because the story needs a convenient plot mechanism — because the world he was born into demands it, and Lucio is the kind of man who takes those demands seriously. He is disciplined. He is responsible. He is, in every measurable way, exactly the prince a kingdom would want.
And that is precisely his problem. He is so good at being what everyone else needs that he has almost no idea what he actually wants.
That tension — the prince who performs his role flawlessly and is quietly starving underneath it — is what makes Powerful Prince land so hard for readers. Nicole Steel, the heroine, has built her entire empire on a philosophy of authenticity and transparency called Modern Life. She is the last person who should work as a match for a man who has been performing a role his whole life. And she is exactly the right person. That contradiction is where the romance lives.
The fake marriage element in Powerful Prince is not played for comedy. It is played for the real emotional cost of pretending with someone you are starting to genuinely want. Every time Lucio and Nicole have to perform their arrangement for the public, the performance gets harder — because what they feel in private is becoming impossible to contain.
Why Jennifer Gonzales Remembers — and Why That Changes Everything
Now here is where the video went somewhere I did not entirely plan, and honestly it is the most important part of the whole conversation.
Jennifer Gonzales is not a Steel character. She lives inside the House of Morgan saga — twenty books about the children of a criminal patriarch who built an empire across multiple continents and multiple families, and who died before page one. Jennifer is Peter Morgan’s love interest across all twenty books. She is a telenovela actress turned Hollywood star. She is a woman whose eggs were stolen twice — first by Peter’s father, then by Peter’s wife Belle. She is a woman whose mother sold her when she was young and spent years manipulating her sense of her own worth.
She is also the most complex character I have ever written. And right now, where the Morgan saga sits, Jennifer is finally in the room with her children. She is living in Peter’s house. She is not with Peter — they are not together. The question is not whether she loves him. The question is whether she will ever trust herself enough to believe she deserves what she fought twenty books to get.
When I talk about Prince Lucio needing a queen in the context of Jennifer remembering, I am talking about something that runs through the Steel Series and the Morgan world equally: the difference between being chosen and choosing yourself first. Lucio needs a queen because the world demands it. But the women in my books — Nicole Steel, Jennifer Gonzales, every heroine I have written across more than 100 novels — they stop being available for other people’s needs at the exact moment they start remembering their own.
That is the revolution hidden inside a royal romance. That is why readers who find the Steel Series cannot stop at one book. And that is why Jennifer’s arc in the Morgan saga requires twenty books to tell properly — because learning to trust yourself after everyone around you has tried to define you is not a one-chapter journey.
How the Steel Series Fits the Fake Marriage and Secret Baby Romance Tropes
I want to go a little deeper into the trope craft here because I get asked constantly how I make secret baby and fake marriage feel fresh across multiple books in the same series. The honest answer is that the trope is never the story — the trope is the container for the story.
In a secret baby romance, the reveal is not the climax. The reveal is the beginning of the real conflict. What do two people do with the truth when the truth is this heavy? How do you co-parent with someone you wanted to love and then lost? How do you let someone into your child’s life when your child is already your whole world and this person is still a stranger wearing a familiar face? Those are the questions that make a secret baby romance worth reading past the reveal scene.
In a fake marriage romance, the wedding is not the payoff. The wedding is the trap that forces two emotionally unavailable people to stop performing distance. The performance of intimacy — the shared apartment, the coordinated appearances, the story you both have to keep straight — it cracks people open. You cannot pretend to be close to someone every day without eventually feeling how much you want the pretend to be real.
The Steel Series uses both of these tropes with that kind of depth. And the Princes of Avce series, which overlaps tonally with the Steel world through characters like Lucio, uses the royal romance frame to add another layer: the weight of a name, a title, a legacy that was never yours to choose but is completely yours to carry.
If you love this intersection of tropes, I would point you toward the fake relationship romance collection on my site — it pulls together the books across multiple series where the pretend becomes the most real thing in the story.
Where Does Jennifer’s Story Go From Here?
I want to be careful here because I do not want to spoil the Morgan arc for anyone who is still in the early books. But I will say this: Jennifer’s journey is not a love story in the traditional romance sense. It is a becoming story. The romance with Peter is the reward at the end of that journey — not the journey itself.
She has done the deep healing work. She banished her mother. She exposed Belle. She fought to know her children. And now she is in the hardest part: living inside the life she fought for and learning to believe she belongs there.
The Morgan saga — all twenty books — is available as part of the House of Morgan billionaire romance series, and Secret Crush (Book 1) is permanently free on every retailer. If you have never started this world, that is where you begin. If you are already inside it, you know exactly why Jennifer’s arc keeps you coming back.
DM me the word MORGAN and I will send you the complete House of Morgan reading order.
The Steel Series Reading Order
Here is the complete Steel Series reading order so you can dive straight in:
- Rocking Player — FREE on all retailers. Fake marriage, sports romance. The one that starts everything.
- Charming Boyfriend — Royal romance threads begin to surface inside the Steel world.
- Cocky M.D. — Boss and employee tension, billionaire stakes, forbidden edges.
- French Doctor — Family saga deepens. The Steel world gets bigger.
- Fierce Fighter — Second chance, family saga, the question of what you owe the past.
- Legendary Rock Star — Second chance with a rock star. Small town setting. Big emotional payoff.
- Powerful Prince — Prince Lucio needs a queen. Nicole Steel has other ideas. Fake marriage under royal pressure.
- Ruthless Financier — The financial power player who has never lost anything until now.
- Scottish Seducer — The Steel world crosses into Highland territory. Rugged, complicated, irresistible.
- Wicked Cowboy — The final Steel book. Big family payoff. Everything the saga has been building to.
Every book is available on Apple Books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and more. Start with Rocking Player free, and when you are ready for the royal romance tension at the center of the series, Powerful Prince is waiting.
Why I Wrote These Stories — The Personal Truth
I want to tell you something I do not always say out loud about the Steel Series. I wrote these books at a time in my life when I was thinking a lot about what it means to build something real versus something performed. The Steel family has everything that looks like success from the outside — wealth, power, dynasty, legacy. And every single book in this series is about one of them discovering that the performance of having everything was costing them the actual thing they wanted most.
That is why a Steel love is forged to last. Not because it comes easily. Because it survives being tested by the exact pressures that expose whether something is real or just a very convincing arrangement.
Jennifer Gonzales carries that same truth in the Morgan world. She has been tested by things most people cannot imagine. And she is still here. Still choosing. Still remembering who she is underneath everything that was done to her.
Writing these characters — both the Steel women and Jennifer — taught me things about resilience that I am still applying to my own life. And that is why I keep writing them. Not because the market demands a sequel. Because these people feel real to me, and their stories are not finished.
Come watch the full video, read the books, and DM me the word STEEL for your complete reading guide. I want to know which Steel story hits you hardest — and whether you are team Jennifer figuring herself out or team Peter waiting patiently. Either answer tells me everything about you as a reader.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Steel Series by Victoria Pinder about?
The Steel Series is a ten-book interconnected billionaire romance saga featuring secret babies, fake marriages, pro athletes, and power players. Each book follows a different couple within the Steel family, with tropes including secret baby romance, fake marriage, sports romance, and royal romance. The series tagline is ‘A Steel love is forged to last.’ Rocking Player (Book 1) is free on all retailers.
Who is Prince Lucio in Powerful Prince and what is his story?
Prince Lucio is a royal hero in the Steel Series who carries the weight of dynasty and expectation — he needs a queen, both politically and personally. In Powerful Prince, he enters a fake marriage arrangement with Nicole Steel, a lifestyle entrepreneur whose entire brand is built on authenticity. The tension between his performed royal life and her demand for realness is the engine of their romance.
Who is Jennifer Gonzales in the House of Morgan series?
Jennifer Gonzales is a telenovela actress turned Hollywood star who serves as Peter Morgan’s love interest across all 20 books in the House of Morgan saga. Her eggs were stolen twice, her mother sold her as a young woman, and she spent years being used by people who should have protected her. Her arc across the series is about learning to trust herself — the romance with Peter is the reward at the end of that journey, not the journey itself.
Where do you start with the Steel Series?
Start with Rocking Player, which is permanently free on Apple Books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and all major retailers. It introduces the Steel world through a fake marriage and sports romance setup and sets up the family dynamics that carry through all ten books. DM Victoria the word STEEL on Instagram for the complete reading order.
What tropes are in the Steel Series?
The Steel Series features secret baby romance, fake marriage, sports romance, billionaire romance, royal romance, boss and employee tension, second chance romance, and forbidden love across its ten books. Each book stands alone as a complete love story with a guaranteed happily ever after while building the larger Steel family saga.
What is the YouTube video ‘Prince Lucio Needs a Queen But Jennifer Remembers’ about?
The video explores the emotional parallel between Prince Lucio Steel (who needs a queen because his world demands it) and Jennifer Gonzales (a House of Morgan character who is finally learning that her value is not defined by what powerful people need from her). USA Today Bestselling Author Victoria Pinder uses this contrast to dig into why the Steel Series and the Morgan saga both resonate so deeply with romance readers who love stories about women reclaiming their own sense of worth.
Is Powerful Prince part of the Steel Series or the Princes of Avce series?
Powerful Prince is part of the Steel Series (Book 7) and features Prince Lucio Steel in a fake marriage romance with Nicole Steel. While Lucio carries a royal title and the book shares royal romance elements with the Princes of Avce series, Powerful Prince is formally a Steel Series book. Both series are available wide on all major retailers with the full reading orders at victoriapinder.com.
