The Solstice Prince

This was a trip to pure cotton-candy fluffland, and I loved it. It's incredibly sweet.

There's zero conflict between the main characters. They are both dealing with some difficult things: the PoV character is recovering from having been a slave (he isn't a slave at any point in this story), and his love interest is facing the death of a beloved parent. But they both help each other, and it's clear that their mutual support will continue.

I can never get enough of queertopia fantasy worlds, where no one has any problem with anyone's orientation. Jaime also comes from a country that's a little behind the one he's living in, in terms of social progress, so he's very happy that his romance can be out in the open. There isn't any mention of specific queer people other than the main pairing, and their relationship is a little more structured than I prefer in fiction (the love interest is much more dominant than the PoV character, although there is nothing like BDSM going on). But that's a minor reading preference. I really liked all the public courting scenes, as well as how completely Maxim's family accepted Jaime.

There are hints of worldbuilding that could be developed into an interesting plot, but there isn't much actual plot here, aside from the romance. I feel that the story is intended as a pure escape, and it succeeds really well, for me. I'll definitely be reading/listening to it again. I don't know if the next book will be about another couple in the same world, or about this pair, or something else, but I look forward to finding out.

Cute story, I guess. Literally felt nothing about any of the characters, whether they be main characters or side ones. If you're gonna write a romance novel you have to sell the idea of romance between your intimate characters to your readers. For me, I just didn't buy into their romance, it just sort of happened and wasn't rewarding in the slightest. There was functionally no conflict in either the development of their relationship nor in the broader scope of the world.

This is a very soft, sweet and cute book which was what I wanted - but it's also extremely shallow. Jamie is sweet and broken but not so broken that it ever actually informs anything about his personality beyond the first time he meets Maxim. Maxim is sweet and kind and generous and we never spend one moment of time in his head so even by the end of the book he still seems like an enigma.

The kissing starts very quickly - I prefer a build up, friends to lovers, as they say, but in here they go from strangers to kissing in three meetings. (I think literally, but it's definitely quickly.) Thankfully, the sex comes much, much later, which was about the only thing this book did right for me. There's overblown statements of affection, love and even a marriage proposal all before the end of this short book.

And, speaking of the length, it took me forever to read because there was no driving force in the book. For me to really be interested in a book, I need a hook - something like, will they get together or how will they solve this problem. This book didn't have anything besides a sweet boy meeting a sweet prince and them falling quickly and seamlessly in love. If you like those type of books, I would want to recommend this one to you except for one major issue I had with it that.

If you would switch out all of Jamie's pronouns from he to she and delete two or three brief conversations about same sex relationships...it reads just like an early straight romance novel. I don't usually notice this and I hate drawing this comparison, but so many of Jamie's character notes are stereotypical of romance heroines.

Finally, this book is a romance with slight fantasy flavor. There's hardly any talk about how Jamie's magic actually does anything and there is a completely undescribed (except for color) animal in the story that I still have no idea what it's supposed to look like.