Book Review: Bound to the Shadow Prince
About three years ago, I signed up for a Kindle Unlimited subscription (and saying that out loud makes me too afraid to contemplate what that indulgence has cost me in that time). At the time, the thinking was to sign up for the one-month free trial in order to binge read Ruby Dixon’s Ice Planet Barbarians series, which was experiencing a viral moment, and devoured the whole thing in a month.
Dixon’s latest novel, Bound to the Shadow Prince, is a delight, and is a must for those who are fans of Dixon’s fantasy series Aspect & Anchor. Despite the similarities in book titles, Shadow Prince is a standalone, but is also set in a wholly original fantasy world. The story follows Candra, a princess who is forced to move into an isolated tower for seven years as part of the terms of an ancient curse. Also with her is Nemeth, a prince from a rival kingdom who must also remain in the tower under the terms of the same curse.
For all that Shadow Prince is a romance, it is still a good deal darker than IPB. Yes, the core premise of IPB is dark, in that this group of women have been taken against their will and crash-landed on a planet that possesses no way to get them back to their homes and loved ones. But once you get past that, the series is fairly lighthearted.
In this respect too, its closest comparison is Aspect & Anchor, which also deals with darker themes, and leans more romantasy than romance with a fantasy element. It’s sweet, its steamy. The male lead is nothing short of a growly teddy bear - which is just how we like them - and the heroine has an understandable anger and frustration towards the fact that she is expected to remain locked up for years. Bravery is all well and good, but how many of us can say we’d face that stoically? But all that said, the book was an enjoyable, fast-paced read that is par for the course with Dixon’s work: if you’re a fan, you’ll like this one.
Bound to the Shadow Prince is available July 2. Special thank you to NetGalley and W by Wattpad for the advance copy for review purposes.
