Jess's Review: Bound to the Prince by Deborah Court

Bound to the Prince
by Deborah Court
ebook, 0 pages
Published August 19th 2011 by Deborah Court, via Smashwords 
Courtesy of author

An elven prince without a throne.
A mortal woman without hope, stolen from her own world to fulfill his every desire.
A choice of love and death that could bind them together forever.
Some people believe that beneath our own world, separated only by a thin veil of human disbelief, there is another one – an ancient land of myths and legends, a place where magical creatures dwell. What would happen if one of them walked the streets of London at night?
Once a proud warrior, elven prince Elathan was living in exile, fallen from grace and separated from his own people. He wanted the mortal woman the moment he saw her standing on Blackfriars Bridge, staring down into the darkness with unbearable pain in her eyes. This strangely compelling female also happened to have luscious curves that made his body ache with desire.Naturally, he decided to hunt the woman down, drag her to his lair and command her to become his slave of pleasure. But would her frail human body survive a night of untamed passion in the arms of a Fae?
After a devastating breakup with her fiancé, Igraine Chandler was spending her honeymoon in England all by herself, her life utterly bereft of meaning. For who could ever love a plain, slightly overweight nurse from New Jersey with nothing left but a broken heart and her lost dreams of a home and a family?But she never imagined that she would soon set out into a world beyond her wildest dreams, and help a prince reclaim his throne …
Set in a medieval fantasy world of noble knights, monsters and magicians, honor, betrayal and revenge, “Bound to the Prince” is a romance influenced by Celtic mythology and Arthurian legends. But in its heart, it’s a story of a woman’s inner development to a new, strong, self; uninhibited desire, boundless love, loss and sacrifice.

GoodReads


Jess’s Thoughts:
Deborah Court has an amazing imagination, creating vivid a new world and populating it with unusual, but believable, creatures and people. From a precognitive half -unicorn half-dragon who lives in a lake of lava to the dangerous grass demons that silently hunt their prey through the undergrowth, Court presents us with a world as varied and detailed as our own.  

We don’t hear an awful lot about Igraine’s life before meeting Elathan on the bridge but what we do learn hints that she felt so distanced from her own world that it would be a relatively easy transition to move into the Elven world. Igraine seems to grow into her own skin and gains confidence as she learns to trust her own body and beliefs. However, sometimes I did wish that she was less dependant on Elathan to feel good about herself as she could’ve easily been a strong enough character to accept herself after Elathan opened her eyes to her own value.  All of the major characters have little quirks that make them seem believable even though they’re often elves!  One of my favorite characters was Calatin, his easy-going and impulsive nature brings a lot of fun to the page even when situations seem a little bleak.


While I did enjoy this book overall I have to say there were a few major problems with it. I was very uncomfortable with how Igraine and Elathan’s relationship began with him kidnapping her to be a ‘slave of pleasure’. The fact that she grew to love him didn’t really stop that from being creepy and instead just smacked of Stockholm Syndrome. If Elathan had saved her from jumping then took her with him to look after her and their relationship developed from there it might’ve been less disturbing.  The other problem is an entirely personal one; there seemed to be too much sex in odd places of the book. There’s nothing wrong with many of them but a few just seemed to be thrown in at the oddest times, as though any situation could be solved through bonking (some certainly can, but all?!).


Bound to the Prince has a great plot, a wonderfully creative elven world and interesting characters but is let down by the creepy beginning to Igraine and Elathan’s relationship. If you don’t mind or can ignore that side of it and like paranormal stories then Bound to the Prince is definitely worth a read!

Jess's Rating: 3 Wine Glasses - Good Read