The King's Pleasure

I found this in a lending library replete with romance novels in the tiny town of Pacific Beach, WA (as all lending libraries in tiny beach towns should be). It is very representative of the genre (which I like!), but not exceptional, and grating in one significant way. The author is totally up on her medieval history, so I did actually enjoy and learn from the political intrigue aspects of the plot, but the central romance is just way too consistently about rape fantasy for me. I don't want that to sound judgmental, because there is a wide swath of things that people find sexy and enjoy in consensual ways, but if a relationship is all “hate sex,” that's just not my particular cup of tea. No matter how satisfying the characters are written as finding it afterwards. But my feelings aren't hurt, and it was exactly the sort of thing you zip through at the beach and then never think of again (or at least, once you write your goodreads review).