Lucie is in love with the prince, but as a daughter of a Baron, she knows she will never be allowed to be with him. To make matters worse, as the story opens, she finds out she has become engaged to a man according to her father, and she is obedient to her father.  So she makes the heartbreaking decision to cut ties with the prince whom she has given her heart to. 

Meanwhile, said prince, Geo, and his older brother, Dmitri, are in battle when they both shoot arrows at the enemy, one specific Llewesian.  Of course, the poor solider turns out to be the crowned prince of Llewes, the only heir, and the mourning king of Llewes becomes an even more poignant enemy to Tybiria.  

Right after the battle, the King and Queen of Tybiria host an engagement announcement party for their crowned prince, Dmitri. And you've guessed it, Lucie is the lucky girl. Before Geo can even fully realize what happened - his love is not engaged to his brother - the Llewesian army sweeps in and kidnaps Dmitri.  And of course the adventure begins...

The pace of this story was perfect. As a typical fairy tale adventure story, I wanted something full of action, and this book was full of action. Each chapter drives you further into the adventure of brother saving brother, boy falling in love with girl, girl falling for the wrong boy... so in that way, this was an incredibly fun read.

I also appreciated both Geo and Dmitri - they are opposites, but are best friends. There is no crazy brother rivalry that has them fighting over the crown, or whatnot. They truly have each other's best interests at heart, at least the majority of the time.

I understand that the romance between Lucie and Geo early in the book was there so we would know just how much they loved each other. But the scenes are bit too explicit for the style of the writing.  The intimate moments between these two reads like a mature YA book, yet the rest of the story, plotting, and adventure reads like a teen book. I simply wish there would have been a way to leave out some of the details of their need to sneak around to meet...

Also, later in the book, there is a point where they enter a brothel to find some assistance in the ongoing battle of the two kingdoms, and again, for just this scene the terms used are more mature than the rest of the book. Overall this is very much a fairy tale story, that should be a fun read for young teens, but some topics, in the detail described, are simply not necessary.

I can only give this book a three heart rating because of the knock on not writing to the correct audience on subject matter. If this were pitched as more of a New Adult book, fine, but as a teen/YA book, there are some scenes that needed edited for mature content. Otherwise, it was a super sweet teen fairy tale. 

This one is a little tricky... because it is a love story, think Romeo & Juliet, sort of... and as such there are some romance moments, which is fine.  Amazon claims this to be a romance or even a romcom, which is fine, alright, but the language used, and the pacing reads like a teen/YA, which is where many Goodreads reviewers place it.  And I would put it in a YA category as well... the fairy tale books are all the rage in YA.  But with some mature intimate scenes, I would caution young teens from this, at least give a heads up to parents.  Which is why maybe this should be a NA (New Adult, at this is a coming of age story, of a more mature nature...).  So if you are an adult, and don't mind some explicit, or hinting, heavily at explicit scenes, this would be a fun read for fairy tale fans.  Well that was full of rambling... but oh well!

Author & Giveaway!

    I should mention this is a free Kindle unlimited book!!  yay FREE!!