“Is there anyone at this court who isn’t my enemy?”
“Not if I can help it,” Laurent said.”

We all have that one book you see everywhere, think of picking up one day, but just keep putting it off for no reason whatsoever. You keep seeing it, you see that its cheap in online stores, and there’s not a lot of hype surrounding it, but if there is, its always good reviews. But for some reason, no matter how many times you tell yourself you’ll pick it up, you either forget, or put it off one more time.
That is until your friend gets tired of that lazy behavior and buys the book for you. And many thanks to Char for doing that, and further below, you’ll know why im thankful for that.

As much as I love historical fiction, especially when its set in Ancient Greece, nothing could satisfy me as much as The Song of Achilles. I wanted to give this book a chance, but I didn’t see any point in it; but because I trust my friends, I gave it a chance.

“Laurent had stopped dead the moment he had seen Damen, his face turning white as though in reaction to a slap, or an insult.”

Captive Prince is essentially about a prince turned slave, orced to become a key point in an ongoing political war. A lot of treachery, torture, battle, and political discussions ensue, and luckily, we didn’t get a cliffhanger in the end, which is so prone to happen in trilogies. But not this time. And thats a bonus in my book!

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Having Greek friends, I almost always ask them about a story or characters of any Ancient Greek related novel, which resulted in me loving this book more for being entirely fictional and made up by the author herself as opposed to a retelling. To create your own characters and world development in something as complex as Ancient Greece really made me respect the author more, especially in days where your stories have to be historically correct to sell more in the historical fiction genre. I’m normally very picky around historical fiction, as I dislike very cliché stories, but picking this book up made me be more open to NA specifically.

“Nephew. you were not invited to these discussions.’
‘And yet, here I am. It’s very irritating, isn’t it?’ Said Laurent.”  

The characters were probably my favorite thing about this book. I didn’t like Laurent as much as I thought I would but I still like him very much. I bet I’ll change my mind in the next book. But for now I my favorites are Damen and Nicaise, both being sly and beautiful babies throughout the book. The story was enjoyable and entertaining, with a very soul crushing and slow burning romance (I can tell they’re going to fall in love fight me). I feel like this book was a very good introduction to the rest of the trilogy, and I do expect a lot more to happen in the second book.

Still, like almost every other book that is part of a series or trilogy, I cannot say much more about this book without spoiling it, so I’d be more than happy to do a combined review for the entire trilogy once I read the entire thing!