I’ll admit: I’m a sucker for royalty stories, on-the-road romance, secret identities, and secret babies. No, wait, not that last one. But definitely the first three.

The Prince Kidnaps a Bride is the third book in a trilogy centered on Prince Rainger’s search for the three lost princesses of Beaumontagne, a kingdom in the Pyrenees. Jumping into a trilogy with the third book is never easy or advisable, but while I do appreciate a larger, multi-book story arc, a good book that’s part of a trilogy should stand on its own. This one does, in that I didn’t miss the first two or rush out immediately to buy them, but it also means the flaws of this book are contained within itself. I don’t think the things that bothered me can be blamed on the absence of the first two.

Crown Princess Sorcha, the third lost princess and heir to the throne of Beaumontagne, has been living in a convent in Scotland as a novice nun protected by cliff walls, a bossy sea, and a mother superior. While Sorcha is moderately happy there, the arrival of a drippy simpleton named Arnou, who washes up on the shore of the island, signals the time has come for Sorcha to leave and return to Beaumontagne.

Sorcha, as the future queen, has been hidden in the innocent simplicity of a life in the convent, and as a result hasn’t had to grow up much or mature beyond her responsibilities as a novice- responsibilities that don’t include kingdom-running. She was educated by her grandmother, the dowager Queen, but she still has a great deal of trepidation at leaving the convent, and would prefer to pick the easy, though cold and windy, route than journeying home to a kingdom she hasn’t set foot in for years. But she has to leave the convent, because her identity has been discovered, and her life is in danger. She must run, hide, and find her way back to her kingdom to save her life and the lives of her people.

Arnou, it turns out, is Prince Rainger in disguise (don’t worry, I’m not spoiling anything. It’s revealed in the back cover copy) and is desperate to find and marry Sorcha so he can redeem himself and recover his country from a cruel despot who took Rainger’s throne in a humiliating coup. Rainger needs the stability of the Beaumontagne army, and the support of its people, to rescue his own, and he needs Sorcha to accomplish his ends. 

And there you have a few of my favorite romance storylines, tied up together: secret identity, and journey romance. I love the romances where someone hides who they are for whatever reason though I prefer it be a somewhat lucid motivation driving the idea. I love watching people reveal their true selves while hiding in plain sight, particularly when the someone hiding is someone whose presence would attract a great deal of attention. And I equally love journey romances that take place on a quest or on the road to a destination. While it’s easy to place a hero and heroine on the road, unsupervised, without parents or social demands watching over them at every moment, it’s also enormously effective at cutting right to the heart of the attraction between two people.

So with The Prince Kidnaps a Bride, we have Sorcha wishing she could hide in the convent, and, once she leaves it, wishing she could somehow reveal her identity as the Crown Princess without bringing her life into more immediate danger. Rainger (and you know I had to force my eyes to see the “i” and thus not picture a Cuban bounty hunter) needs to overcome some dreadful discretions that cost him his kingdom, and save the oppressed people who aren’t sure they can even count on him as a ruler or savior.

Thrust the two of them onto a dangerous assassin-filled journey home to their respective kingdoms, and it’s potentially delicious: he doesn’t want her to know who he is because he knows she’ll see him for the callous bonehead he was in his youth, and she’ll rightly assume he’s only interested in her because of her kingdom. He’s enjoying being a more simple version of himself, while keeping her safe and learning who she is. Meanwhile, Sorcha is drunk on the freedom of life outside the convent, and rushes headlong into any social interaction she can, since she’s been talking to the same handful of nuns for years. She thinks that Arnou couldn’t possibly understand her position as a royal, so she is herself as she had been at the convent. And beneath all that hidden agenda, they fall in love.

I wish the book had lived up to the delicious promise, but alas it did not. The biggest loss for me as a reader were the huge jumps in time: there were large gaps after an almost-daily accounting of their adventures from the convent to the ship that would take them home, like once they got to the ship it could warp time and drop them months into the future. Bam! We’re home! Bam! It’s the future! Bam! Prepare for the nursing home, Sorcha!

How would they manage becoming, or returning to an existence as royal betrothed as opposed to hunted fugitives? How did they transition? There’s little mentioned to reveal how their future romance would survive, even though that future is so very different from the beginning and foundation of their relationship. That’s the problem with many on-the-road romances: once the journey is over, I wish the hero and heroine would remove themselves from the static environment of their homes that stifles their romance and forces them to hide behind roles and expectations, and get back on the road already. Once the journey is over, the romance changes, and I wanted assurance that the romance that they had would survive that change.

Sorcha herself is perfect perfect perfect. She charms hos. She outwits horse sellers (with the intimidating yet hidden presence of Rainger behind her). She befriends everyone, even the most jaded, hardened person in town, and Rainger is driven batty trying to keep up with her and keep her from getting herself killed. Her innocence becomes grating even as she ponders and discusses her role as a ruler, and her education that prepared her for that life. At times, I wanted to smack her: Yes, dear, you’re going to have to rule a kingdom, so it’s time to grow up, grow a spine, and stop discussing blow jobs with the hos.

I did love the hero, but I’m a sucker for the flawed hero confronting his own foibles and committing himself to redemption, even as he nurses the same selfish intentions with Sorcha. She’s a means to an end, and he does make the mistake of saying so.

The best part of the book was the setting: the pressure of royalty and the expectations from others that genuinely affect the motivations of the hero and heroine. They were both crown royalty, born to leadership, but both have to work to restore themselves to their positions, and thus Dodd ensured that both characters earn their royal status in the readers’ eyes – smart move.

I also enjoyed the different questions and definitions of honor that surrounds the hero, and the heroine. They each had to resolve questions of their own worth in the face of future responsibilities, that is, if they could overcome the obstacles that stood in their way. To have a heroine who will be queen face similar issues as the hero when examining self worth and duty was entirely refreshing, and I have to believe that any person born into a position of monarchical authority would face similar doubts. Add to that a rich imagery of faith, and the idea that honor and love can protect your life, and I probably would have arrived at a better grade.

Because of the themes of worth and leadership that surround the protagonists, The Prince Kidnaps a Bride is more complex than most romance novels. I wanted to rank it higher since it did give me more to ponder, and gave me that rumination in the form of a empathetic hero and charming heroine. But there were too many “but’s” standing in my way, not the least of which was the resolution of the story of other two lost princesses. Add to that large gaps in storyline, and a feeling of a slow journey and a very rushed final denouement, and I arrived at a grade that, while not bad, isn’t as stellar as it could have been.