Captive Prince (Captive Prince, #1)by C.S. Pacat
Published by Berkley
Paperback (purchased)
Adult, LGBT, historical
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…
A fair warning, the novel is explicit and contains some sensitive/possibly triggering themes such as rape, pedophilia, slavery and physical abuse. Captive Prince was a very fast read for me, because it was captivating, fast paced, and I wanted to know what happens next. It's intense and withholds some interesting characters, and some that you just love to hate with all your heart's content. Captive Prince is a very character driven story, which I enjoy a lot when they're well written and has strong character voices, which Damen especially had. There was some scenes I cringed because of the themes they had, but I'm not very sensitive and I can stomach a lot. At some point it did seem that the author made a few scenes for a shock value, and I hope that the sequel does not do that.
Damen's point of view is intriguing and I felt for him, and admired how strong he was despite the wrongdoings that happened to him. What I especially admired about him, was his strong sense of leadership and the responsibility of taking care those who were his country men - even though he was stripped of his royal status and sent to serve another royal family as a slave. Although, he was a bit naive at the beginning but he grew out of it when the story evolved. Laurent, well, I both loved him and hated him. I felt for him because when I realized what had happened him in the past (and I guessed that pretty soon), and let's face it, Laurent the Ice Prince is the type of character I usually fell for. However, he did some things that can be explained (I surely hope they will be in next installment) that made me hate him - or not really hate, but despise in a way. I see the potential Laurent has, and I'll be happy to read more about him.
If you can stomach some hard topics and don't mind explicit content, I do recommend to try Captive Prince. Especially towards the end the story seems to kick off and it set a huge potential for the sequel, which I hope will be even better than this one.
4 of 5 stars.
