Review: The Promised Prince by Kortney Keisel

I have #Bookstagram to thank for this read. I have seen nothing but gushing reviews for The Promised Prince all over Instagram for months now! After so much praise for this book-written by a fellow indie author, no less-I had to know what all the hype was about.

Perfect for fans of the Selection series by Kiera Cass. Be swept into a world of political intrigue, forbidden love, and royal romance.

He’s promised to another. She’s promised to forget him.

Eighteen-year-old Renna Degray is hopeful about love and her future after a chance encounter with a handsome stranger. Until she discovers who the mysterious man is—the Prince of Albion, betrothed to Renna’s stepsister. Now Renna must try to keep her feelings for the prince in check. But he’s not making it easy. The prince is charming, funny, and impossible not to fall for.  

Trev has no room for mistakes. He must marry the princess of New Hope and secure the marriage alliance along with his future as king. The safety of his kingdom depends on it. Duty and honor never bothered Trev before, but love has a way of changing everything.

In this post-Desolation world, the Council of Essentials controls everything, including the prince. Is love more than a negotiation?

Is love essential?

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I had really high hopes for this book after all the aforementioned praise I’d seen for it. And in several ways, my high expectations were met. Kortney’s writing style was excellent and entertaining. I was able to buy into the world that the characters live in, even though it makes me really sad and unsettled to think of our world ever coming to such a reality. I also really enjoyed the wit and humor, especially between the hero and heroine-they even had me laughing out loud a time or two.

After about the first chapter or two, I was thoroughly intrigued. After struggling to get into anything I tried to read this past month, it felt good to find something I was eager to return to every day. However, there were some “red flags”, I guess you would say, in these first few chapters. The characters’ initial interactions and their insta-love felt too fast. I felt like it was more lust than true love, and this irked me and made it difficult for me to buy into their love story for a while. But other aspects of the story, including the whole premise of falling for a guy and then realizing he’s actually engaged to your step-sister-oh, the drama!-kept me interested enough to keep reading. 

Throughout the book, there continued to be a few things that bothered me, but by the time I reached the halfway mark, I was still enjoying it in most ways and didn’t want to give up on it. The greatest redeeming factor in this book for me is that Kortney kept me on my toes when it came to the entire political conflict that played such a big factor in the story. I thought I knew early on how things would play out, but she ended up taking turns I didn’t expect, and the sweet happily-ever-after didn’t come as easily as you might expect either. This actually helped me to fall in love with Trev and Renna and truly buy into their love by the end of the book. In the last several chapters, I got the sense that both of them had actually grown into stronger and better people and they weren’t focused so much on their own desires anymore. Trev’s list of things he wanted to tell Renna and this entire section of the book turned what felt like a too much too fast romance into a genuine and sweet love story. And that adorable banter between them in the end-you can’t help but smile and laugh along with them!

Overall, I give this 4/5 Stars and I enjoyed it enough that I would read the next book, The Stolen Princes-especially since I’d love to see more of Trev’s best friend, Drake Vestry.

**Note: while the author is a Christian, this is not what I would consider Christian fiction, as God is only mentioned in passing once or twice and there is no spiritual theme integrated into the story. However, it is a clean read suitable for older teens and up.**