The Summer Palace and Other Stories

This is a collection of 4 short stories set in the same universe as Pacat's [b:Captive Prince 9305362 Captive Prince (Captive Prince, #1) C.S. Pacat https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1356028113l/9305362.SY75.jpg 14188292] series. The stories are as follows:1. Green But For a Season (Jord x Aimeric set in book 2)Story #1 wasn't anything special in my opinion. Perhaps this is because I didn't really care about this pairing during the series. Also, I didn't think this was especially well written.2. the Summer Palace (Damen x Laurent set after the end of book 3)Even though this one is technically the epilogue to the series, again, it fell a bit flat as with story #1. It was nice reading about the aftermath of Laurent's and Damen's successions, but the story itself didn't offer anything new that we didn't already read in the 3rd book.3. The Adventures of Charls, The Veretian Cloth Merchant (epilogue 2.0 set after book 3 and the Summer Palace epilogueThis one was my favourite in the collection. It had an intrigue and an adventure at its heart, and it had some of Pacat's signature humour interspersed in between the action. I liked Charls in the main series, so I guess it makes sense that I liked him here too. Even more so, I loved Laurent and Damen here (much more than in Summer Palace because they reminded me of how they were in book 2 (i.e., disguising themselves and sneaking around on secret missions without anyone else's knowledge). It was nice to see the duo go off on a secret adventure again.4. Pet (Ancel x Berenger, set in book 1)Finally, the last story took me by surprise. I didn't think I'd be interested in a story about Ancel, but it ended up being my second favourite story in this collection. Ancel didn't really grab my attention in book 1 (and Berenger even less so), but here he was given more depth, which made him ultimately interesting and more sympathetic.Overall, I wasn't crazy about this collection, and if hadn't it been for story #3, I would have found it all rather disappointing. I still love the main series though, and I'm glad I got to read the epilogue through these short stories.