1.5 out of 5 stars
DNF 68%
E-book. 192 pages. Published April 19th 2014 by Forbidden Lust
Blurb:
In a kingdom faced with civil war, an idealistic prince must abandon the foreign princess he desires for an arranged marriage to an influential knight. Together, the prince and knight travel north to deal with an army marching on the kingdom’s borders, only to discover the biggest threat to the crown is the princess they left behind.
Prince Elliot had everything—wealth, power, the love of a beautiful woman. It wasn’t enough. More than anything he wanted to prove himself worthy of his crown. When negotiations for his sister’s arranged marriage to Sir Blaine fell apart, he was asked to take her place and marry the knight.
Sir Blaine was adored throughout the kingdom for his strategic mind and feats of bravery. He was rewarded with the greatest gift a king could offer a knight—the princess’s hand in marriage.
But Blaine found the brazen Prince Elliot far more enticing.
Likes:
- Female villain.
- Victoria is the smartest of the bunch.
Dislikes:
- The blurb is misleading.
- Overused tropes everywhere.
- Zariya’s evilness is heavy-handed and unrealistic.
- The lack of magical protection is ridiculous.
- Plot holes are “covered” with bullshit excuses.
- Can’t tell if Elliot even likes men or he’s just being manipulated.
- Never got invested in the romance.
- Elliot was an idiot.
- Rape scene.
- Heterosexual romance subplot, complete with sex scene.
- No idea why Blaine loves Elliot, or if it’s just him being manipulated by magic.
- Lots of little writing mistakes.
DNF 68%
This book was to fantasy romance what light beer is to alcohol.
I was a few chapters in when I realized that the writing reminded me of being back in college creative writing classes. So many people thought they were being different, when really their stories were full of overused tropes. That’s what this book is. The only reason I read so far into it was because I wanted to see Zariya get her due. But eventually, I got so disgusted I had to stop.
The actual writing itself isn’t too bad, if you ignore little mistakes like ‘fficers’ instead of ‘officers’. And I did actually like Blaine. He was completely gay but was being forced to marry a woman, knowing it would make them both miserable. He didn’t fight back against his father’s lust for power, only getting mad when it came to how stubborn Elliot was. When Blaine’s mother pointed out that only Elliot could get under Blaine’s skin, I thought that was a great bit of character building.
Unfortunately, Elliot didn’t interest me at all. My first note about the book is literally that Elliot seems like an idiot. Of course, he’s being controlled by Zariya’s magic, but still. He’s an idiot. He “wanted to be more than a toy prince in a paper crown.” Yet he’d never been in battle and even had to be told why the Ghas were trying to attack the fort.
It honestly felt as though the author wanted to write two different stories – one about Blaine and Elliot and one about Victoria. Victoria is Elliot’s sister, and she gets her own chapters and her own story. She even gets sex scenes, which was a huge surprise to me. Victoria isn’t even mentioned in the blurb, and here is a heterosexual romance in the middle of a gay romance. It’s 1.) weird. 2.) not why I picked up the book. And 3.) filled with exactly the sort of traditional misogyny that made me turn away from heterosexual romance in the first place. As much as I liked Victoria as a character, her story wasn’t the one I wanted to read.
I wanted to read a romance. I honestly don’t feel like I even got that. Elliot gave no indication that he was attracted to men at all. It made me wonder if his attraction to Blaine was purely because of Zariya’s magic. The fact that I couldn’t tell even after reading more than half the book is telling. Because if he was being controlled, then there’s no romance, just manipulation.
I’m not even sure why Blaine even liked the prince. They barely knew each other, and yet Blaine is head over heels. He also got whammied by Zariya’s magic, and again I have to wonder about what his real feelings were.
I did like that there was a female villain. I didn’t like that she was basically just a seductress with vague powers of suggestion. The fact that her powers only worked on those who didn’t see her as a threat was cool. But it did raise a lot of questions. Like, why no one was protecting the king and prince from magical attacks?
That ties in with the feeling of being back in a creative writing class. The lack of magical protection is a huge plot hole. And trying to cover it up with a throwaway line about how all the people with magic serve in the temples and they should be protecting the castle from there doesn’t cut it. If anything, it’s like slapping a Band-Aid over a crack in the sidewalk. We can all still see that there’s a problem.
A combination of things finally made me give up on this book. First, the rape scene. It didn’t involve either of the character, not that that made it better. Once Elliot and Blaine got to the fort where the battle was happening, the book got preachy about how bad war is. Death, destruction, and rape. Elliot, who if you remember, has never been to a battle and had to be told why the Ghas were attacking, immediately came up with a brilliant idea to fix everything. And that moment was what made me drop the book. The toy prince who knows nothing and has no experience is going to save the day? Yeah right.
To say I’m disappointed in this book is a massive understatement. I’ve given up on plenty of books in the past, but this one just annoys me for some reason.
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