Captive Prince

Picked this book up on a whim because I'd seen it in a window display of “adventure stories” (next to Treasure Island and the like) at the American Book Center in Amsterdam. I knew nothing about it, but I'm always on the lookout for new adventure stories and swashbucklers and I like a surprise.

Because I am apparently a very innocent person, it took me about a third of the book to realize I was actually reading gay bdsm fantasy (to make clear how much of an innocent I am, this was far beyond the point in the story where there is a naked wrestling match that ends in the victor penetrating the other guy while the onlookers in the stadium are being pleasured by slaves - at which point I was like “gosh, I don't think that's really necessary”. But you know, after that there was a fight, so I took a swig of my morning coffee and on I went...) And really, I don't have anything against this kind of literature (you do you!), and I guess all of this is more the fault of the American Book Center than of this book, and technically I did get my surprise, but I can't get over the fact that there are no pirates, not even naked ones, there is no adventure except, I guess, naked adventures in unexpected pentration, and swashes were only being bucklered in a way I was not really looking for. Also the writing was quite bad.

So that's the story. dnf and this book gets one star.