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…
I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but I really wasn’t interested in reading Captive Prince at first. I had to be coerced into giving it a shot, and I went in fully prepared to be stubborn about it. I was ready to write it off as another Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty type of Fantasy BDSM series, and I so was not interested.
Boy oh boy, did I have to eat crow when I finished the first book. This series is so far removed from ‘a random fantasy BDSM’ series, it’s almost embarrassing that I made such an assumption. Yes, Damen is a prince who has been sold as a pleasure slave. Yes, he is paraded around the castle nude. That’s pretty much where the similarities end. There is one sexual interaction in the entire book, and the rest of the story is about world building and court intrigue. It’s showing you how Vere feels about Akielos. It’s explaining why Laurent hates Damianos so much. It’s setting up for what happens in Prince’s Gambit and Kings Rising.
I never expected to find another love story to rival Outlander in my heart, but Laurent and Damen come damn close. This is a trilogy that I happily reread every year. It’s a series that, when away from the characters for too long, I begin to miss – almost like I’m homesick.
Phenomenal.
They don’t play for the same team. Or do they?
Jamie Canning has never been able to figure out how he lost his closest friend. Four years ago, his tattooed, wise-cracking, rule-breaking roommate cut him off without an explanation. So what if things got a little weird on the last night of hockey camp the summer they were eighteen? It was just a little drunken foolishness. Nobody died.
Ryan Wesley’s biggest regret is coaxing his very straight friend into a bet that pushed the boundaries of their relationship. Now, with their college teams set to face off at the national championship, he’ll finally get a chance to apologize. But all it takes is one look at his longtime crush, and the ache is stronger than ever.
Jamie has waited a long time for answers, but walks away with only more questions—can one night of sex ruin a friendship? If not, how about six more weeks of it? When Wesley turns up to coach alongside Jamie for one more hot summer at camp, Jamie has a few things to discover about his old friend… and a big one to learn about himself.
When Him started going around on Goodreads, I remember feeling immediately annoyed. I’d recently read The Understatement of the Year by Sarina Bowen, and I couldn’t help feeling like the synopsis was regurgitated. Both Him and UotY are both about hockey players who were best friends as kids, but an encounter of a certain type ended that friendship and they haven’t spoken in years. Then, they’re suddenly forced (through hockey) to interact with each other again. Sure, the synopsis details are slightly different. The names are different, but the main plot is almost identical. It may have bothered me less if it was a new author, but it was another Sarina Bowen. Still, despite my reservations I decided to read it because everyone was saying how amazing it was.
And now it’s my favorite contemporary romance!
There are similarities. Yes, the surface premise is the same. However, the differences are in more than just the details. There’s something about Wes and Jamie that’s more than a romance. Reading their story I actually feel like they are best friends first. Wes can’t live without Jamie in his life, and hell yeah he wants it romantically, but if he couldn’t have that he would have been perfectly happy to just be best friends. His need for Jamie’s companionship was stronger than his need for Jamie sexually, and I really think that’s why this duology means so much to me. It’s a hot read, but it’s also heartwarming. You can feel their admiration for each other first, their connection, and everything else is secondary.
They are the perfect best friends to lovers story.
Birdie Bookworm 
Hahaha I love how you honestly said that you were prepared to be stubborn Wendy 😉 I have sometimes similar reactions but I’m always overjoyed when I’m proved wrong about a book as it means that I had a great reading time!
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That’s exactly how it was! It was the best surprise.
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I need to read Captive Prince!
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I’m glad to read your review on the Captive Prince Trilogy. I have gone back and forth so many times about whether or not to start that series. I like that it’s heavy on the court intrigue, which always fascinates me. I think you have me convinced to add it to my TBR.
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YAY!! I hope you love it too!
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Captive Prince still boggles my mind…I did not expect it to be half as perfect as it is. I definitely need to reread it one day.
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Right! I thought it would be all sex, but it was really all plot!
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