Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  To Poison a Prince

SERIES:  A Tale of Two Princes

AUTHOR:  Aldrea Alien

PUBLISHER:  Thardrandian Publications

LENGTH:  732 pages

RELEASE DATE:  July 31, 2021

BLURB:

Someone is out to murder his husband and he might just be the reason they succeed.

Imperial Crown Prince Darshan knew his journey home wasn’t going to be the modest one he hoped for, especially not after eloping with Hamish, a former prince—and now exile—of Tirglas.
When he thwarts a clumsy attempt on his husband’s life during a soirée hosted by his long-standing rival and half-sister, he figures the worst is behind them.
Yet, the threat of death continues to shadow them across the empire. Someone is intent on making the rumours of his husband’s demise a reality, someone who can erase the memory of their very presence from people’s minds.
Darshan must discover who is behind the attempts before they succeed. But who can he trust when the culprit is capable of slipping by the most vigilant of guards?

Don’t miss the next step in Hamish and Darshan’s story of mystery, magic, romance and more!

*This book contains violence, gore and explicit adult themes.*

REVIEW:

NOTE:  This is the second book in this series starring Hamish and Darshan.  That being said, it doesn’t necessarily work as a standalone.  Reading To Target the Heart first is highly recommended.

This book begins immediately following the events of the previous book, To Target the Heart.   After the many trials and tribulations of Tirglas, Hamish and Darshan are off to Udynea, Crown Prince Darshan’s homeland – and specifically to the capital, Minamist and back to his father and family.  Darshan knows the journey will not be easy – but he knows that their arrival and dealing with the politics of Udynea will also be difficult.  But he cannot foresee ALL that they will have to deal with.  Never mind that he’s arrived home unexpectedly, but he’s got a husband in tow 🙂

After the failure of Darshan’s mission to Tirglas and the instability there, he has to deal with the intrigue within his own country.  While he is more adept at this political jockeying, Hamish is not necessarily prepared for it.  And when someone tries to poison Hamish, all bets are off.  While Hamish and Darshan are trying to move forward as a couple, there are always new situations they find themselves dealing with. New threats continue to come at them.  Darshan has a lot on his plate but he and Hamish to make a formidable time.  There is a LOT going on in this book and I don’t want to be spoilery because half the fun is trying to figure out who is behind what 😉  Suffice to say it’s a wild ride 😀

Again I will say that Fantasy is not generally my favorite genre.  But I fell in love with Hamish and Darshan in the first book and I loved them in this one.  Poor Hamish is still trying to overcome the trauma of his life and exile from Tirglas.  Darshan realizes that getting and more importantly keeping what he wants is not going to be easy.  But he’s in it to win it 😉  Once again the world building of this very interesting land and it’s people is well -done and rather seamlessly rolled into the story.  I didn’t feel like I was dealing with info-dumping or long dry bits covering the history of the people and the lands.  It’s quite a long book, but I didn’t feel like pacing of the story dragged much.  And really given the complexity of the story, I didn’t feel like it was overly long and it kept me engaged and wanting to figure out who and how and why things were happening.  This series is highly recommended for Fantasy fans. If I, a non-fantasy fan enjoyed it, then I can see real fantasy aficionado absolutely loving this 😀

RATING: 

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