Captive Prince: Book One of the Captive Prince Trilogy (Captive Prince Trilogy, #1)

by C. S. Pacat

From global phenomenon C. S. Pacat comes the first novel in her critically acclaimed Captive Prince romance trilogy.

“A special, unforgettable series…Lush. Brutal. Unparalleled.”—Sarah J. Maas, #1 New York Times bestselling author

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...

Includes a bonus short story!

• ISBN10: 0425274268
• ISBN13: 9780425274262
• Publish Date: 7 April 2015 (first published 31 January 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Berkley
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780425274262

Reviews

[Ailyn Henbane]

So one of my friends REALLY hyped this series up, and bugged me about reading it for at least a year. Which made me put it off because it gave me massive anxiety. But I picked it up finally today, and tore through it in a matter of hours. It grabs you quickly and holds on tight from the first page on.

I am fascinated by Damen's reactions to the world he's now a part of and baffled by Laurent, a little worried about some of the things his Uncle says during the course of the book, too. I'm interested to see how this enemies to frenemies is going to go, but I sort of ship it too. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

It IS interesting that no one's sussed out Damen as the Prince yet. I wonder if they will? And how that will go down if it ends up happening.

[mayavswords]

I want to start off by saying that my average or lower rating has nothing at all to do with the depiction of slavery in this book. I think anyone who has taken offense to it unknowingly picked up this book (titled the captive prince like, come on...what do you think that entails??) and enforces this form of “censorship” when an author simply writes a theme or a topic that makes one uncomfortable. I particularly take issue with how gay literature is scrutinized heavily in this respect when there is a whole genre of het romantic fiction that has this same or similar theme hundreds times over.

With that being said, I start my very brief (and mildly salty) review.

Yeah I’m actually really sad I didn’t care for this book much.

I’ve read quite a lot of gay (fan)fiction, so I’ve seen a lot of tropes and executions, which probably makes me incredibly picky and hardly impressed by certain things at this point.

If you’re a fan of enemies to lovers this is definitely your book and I highly recommend it, but that aside, the main issue I take with this book is the world building. It simply does not interest me nor compels to read the next books in the series. (Sexual) Slavery? Ok. Not my thing, but it’s there. Homosexuality is the norm? That’s sweet. Political fights over who rules the throne? Yawn.

Also I don’t really like Laurent. At all. There’s something about seeing another rendition of a snooty, sharp-tongued guy that doesn’t make me want to attach myself to him. It does make for some amusing dialogue with Damen, though.

I’m expecting the next book to have something to redeem Laurent in some sense, but I feel little motivation to see it through. I won’t say much more because I don’t want to have to flag this for spoiler but yeah.

I think it’s overrated, but at least the writing is excellent.

[Linda]

4.5 stars

This was very intense.

[moraa]

I don't know how this interrogation found its way into my bed. May I ask where I can expect it to travel next?

2 December 2019: I liked the concept well enough.

CONTENT WARNINGS: graphic depictions of rape, paedophilic subtext, torture, slavery

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25 November 2018: Edit: Gave it a second chance.

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20 November 2018: This book is like a blank canvas that a painter hasn't bothered to paint on. It has so much potential but she's thrown it all away with very little description and practically zero world-building.
I honestly don't know how I was expected to get through this book with so many gaps in the writing.

[jamiereadthis]

I just need to find somebody who’s read these books and wants to talk for two weeks.

Second time through: I still couldn’t make myself read slow enough, so I ended up typing out the book by hand. (Don’t ask. This is something I do.) It took me ten days to type-read the book in entirety, 60k words, which is at least more satisfactory than ten hours this time. Except now my copy is full of notes in the margins where I talked back to the book, carrying on conversation with— who? Damen, Laurent? Pacat? Myself? All of the above.

It’s even better the second time.

It’s still basically prologue, but guess what. I love epilogues now, so I love prologues now too. The story all tracks. Even this early, every detail adds up to what will be the full picture. Actions and dialogue that read one way the first time are full of different meaning the second time. That’s one reason I’m typing it out, to see how Pacat does it, no info dumps, no flashbacks, just the slow change of perception in one linear timeline in one limited POV.

That kind of enjoyment, I’ve got to bump it up to five stars. Even if, once again, I’ve already moved on to book two and it’s better.

- - -

Original review, 9/10/19:

I’m losing sleep. It’s this book. I’ve been so good all year about not letting anything get in the way of a good night’s sleep and then here comes this trilogy to wreck my new habits. Not because it’s giving me nightmares or insomnia, but because I literally cannot put it down at night. Even worse: I’m waking up at dawn to read more. That doesn’t happen to me! Mornings are torture. I like delayed gratification. I can always put a book down. Not with this book.

Court intrigue is my weakness. Laurent is my kryptonite. This book has kept me up nights and I’m still gonna give it four stars because I’m already devouring the next one and holy moly, it’s better.

This is prologue at best. The best is yet to come. i.e. LAURENT.

[CrowNoYami]

This book was even better than the first one. I don't want to say too much, as not to spoil it. But the issues I had with the previous book? Gone in this one. I absolutely love it. And while I have a feeling that I'm -not- going to like the end of this series I can't wait to dive into the next book!

[liz089]

My first MM novel !! Quite interesting, I'm still not really sure how I feel about certain events in it yet, but after I finished this novel I wanted to grab the second part (which I will get soon), so that is positive.. We'll see how this will continue. This one, 3.5 stars.

[vagasker]

Still one of my to go to books when I'm having a reading slum. I love it, even after reading it for the fourth time. Because now I can search for stuff between the lines to see if it makes sense with the last book in mind. And believe me it does! The characters are great and the first book is a great build-up for the story to come. I will probably read it many times more.

[ross91]

A lot of people hated this book because of all the rapes and violence and graphic content, but honestly I didn't mind, in some ways I even appreciated them: the author wrote about sex slavery, it seemed only fair and natural that he decided to write about it with the use of mature content. I liked also the tones: graphic and crude, never romanticized.
What I didn't like was the plot, specifically the lack of one up until the last 30 or so pages.
The characters were ok I guess, nothing special. Laurent was the one that interested me the most.
There's no world building whatsoever and the (very few) women we meet are secondary characters at best and despicable in various degrees.
The book is very short and fast-paced, you can easily read it in one sitting. Because of this maybe I'll try the sequel.

[cornerfolds]

Read more of my reviews at Cornerfolds.com!

**Review to come!**