Captive Prince
(Captive Prince, #1)
By: C.S. Pacat
Publisher: Berkley
Published: April 7, 2015
Genre: Fantasy M/M Romance
Rating:
Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos. But when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave.
Beautiful, manipulative, and deadly, his new master, Prince Laurent, epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country.
For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone else…
Damen’s half-brother decides to make a play for the throne by killing their father, staging Damen’s death, and shipping him off to a foreign country that they are just shy of being at war with. Worse than that, Damen’s been selected to be the Vere prince’s slave. You see, that’s bad because Damen killed Laurent’s brother in battle and Laurent hold a huge grudge against Prince Damianos. Thankfully, Laurent doesn’t know Damen’s true identity but that doesn’t stop him from humiliating and torturing Damen every chance he gets due to his hatred of the Akielos people in general. Pretty soon, Damen finds himself needing to play along as being the civil slave in the hopes of escaping and returning to his homelands.
Captive Prince is a rather slow read. There’s not a lot of suspense, adventure, or action. Think of Captive Prince as a chess match. Every piece is laid out and every move has a purpose even, if you don’t know what it is at first. You get little spurts of suspense or action here and there but Captive Prince really seemed like it was more or less setting the readers up to the world and the characters that the author created. With that being said, I wasn’t bored one bit. There was no unnecessary drama, no over-dramatic scenes, and no information dumps thrown at the reader. Instead the author acclimates you to their world slowly and in doing so you start to immerse yourself in the story.
This is a story that deals with male on male relations primarily due to the fact that the people of Vere view children born out of wedlock and not of noble lineage to be a huge no-no and means to be shunned. Instead of accidents happening, the nobles tend to stick to slaves or seek company from the same sex as to not accidentally end up with complications in their life. While I don’t fully grasp this concept, it at least brought to life why so many men were walking around with male slaves. Now, I’m not one to read m/m romances. I have on a few occasions read mm romances if the story sounds interesting enough, but it’s not normally my go-to. However, it’s an interesting story and the m/m aspect didn’t overly bother me or throw me off as I read. It did take me a little bit to get used to it all though. For those who do read m/m romances, you would probably dive into this head first and love it.
While there isn’t a lot of action in this book, there is a lot that goes on that was a bit uncomfortable. There’s a “performance” that the nobles put on where their slaves grapple and fight. The end result of this fight is to have one dominate the other male fighter and “mount” him for the enjoyment of the crowd. Yeah, you read that correctly. Thankfully we only have to read about this once but trust me, once was more than enough for me. Not to mention that because they are but mere slaves, the nobles can pimp them out to other nobles, or even pair them off with another slave as to offer entertainment while they discuss business while watching the “performance” unfold. The whole thing was just demented and wrong. So, while there wasn’t a lot of action going on, there was a lot of power-plays and pieces being put into place.
Captive Prince was something I didn’t see coming. I thought it would be an interesting read but I had no idea how much I would enjoy it and how much it would actually consume me. Sure it had it’s hard moments but that’s what made it great. This is not a world I want to live in. This is not a world that I could have ever imagined myself. I don’t tend to read m/m or books with a slow building plot. However, the author was able to grab my attention and hold onto it the entire time. I’m already clamoring to read the next book in the trilogy.
“A golden prince was easy to love if you did not have to watch him picking wings off flies.”
The first time I tried this didn’t really grip me. I credited it to me maybe not being in the mood for it. So it might be the pace too. I’ll keep that in mind on my second attempt.
Wow! It is great that this read consumed you despite not being something you would normally pick up. It sounds like a world I wouldn’t want to be in either. I can’t imagine men acting like that.
However, you do have me intrigued! It sounds like an addictive read!
Hope you enjoy the next book 🙂 I love when books hook me and it’s not something I’d normally read. 😀
After reading your review, I think you analogy of the chess match is very apt. It’s a very intriguing premise, and I’m with you on it not being a world I’d want to live in, but it says a lot for the story itself that it could be so slow-moving and yet captivating. Great review!