Review of Captive Prince: Book One of the Captive Prince Trilogy

It was a very nice read, indeed. CS Pacat writes really well. I started the book looking for a good romance, and the cover, the rating, the synopsis of this one interested me. There is no romance in this first book, but from what people comment and post, romance is where this story is going. Nevertheless, I kept drawn in this book and finished it in one read. It helped that is a short book. But it doesn't 'feel' short. At first I thought it was pretty slow paced, but then things unfolded in always surprising ways, and a nice bunch of stuff happened. The strenghts of Pacat's writing are many. Worldbuilding is excelent, with nice anthropological, sociological undertones, good reasoning behind it all. And it is a very exotic, interesting world to witness. Which is only helped by the fact of the nice character interactions, and they are really well made characters. I guess I have to say there are very dark, mature themes being treated here. I like it, because it makes the world feel more real, but there might be people turned away by it. I thought it was a light type of dark, the author made sure it wasn't too hard and difficult to read. It is written in a way to show just enough of the dark to shock without the need to be gratuitous and uncalled-for.