BIG lion in winter guy here, so, yeah: absolutely insane book i absolutely adored. truly, like, frankenstein’s masterpiece mashup of the lion in winter (1968) + the queen of attolia (2000) with an ungodly amount of captive prince fanfiction (2010s)??? the absolute conviction this woman had to write capri fic about the lion in winter! i’m obsessed! i had ENORMOUS fun. i love politics and i love war and i love pining. sometimes romance is waging a war to get closer to a cute boy, amirite!

i will say i think this could’ve used a stronger edit— it worked for me because i had such a clear & immediate understanding of the characters and all their intricacies & motivations (see above); but/and i’m not really convinced they’re supported in this text itself? i do think there’s some essential characterization & development missing somewhere here and we’re left to fill in the gaps, which personally i feel VERY comfortable doing and it didn’t lessen my enjoyment at all, lmao, but still