The Trouble With Kings by Sherwood Smith
When Flian wakes up with amnesia, one prince, Garian, tells her that she’s his guest, and happily engaged to Jason, king of a nearby country. Despite the amnesia, Flian is quite certain she’d never fall for someone as serious and humorless as Jason. Jason doesn’t seem particularly interested or amused. Another prince, Jaim, climbs the walls and crawls through her windows to urge her to run away with him. Clearly, she got amnesia in the middle of interesting going-ons.
Sherwood Smith’s greatest strength, for me at least, is her straightforward, exceptionally normal heroines, and Flian is no exception. She’s polite and demurring, and can appear dull and passive at a glance, but has sharp claws when crossed. Several times throughout the book, Flian is put in the position of being the Damsel in Distress, but she never actually feels like a Damsel in Distress because she’s always trying to save herself. The Trouble With Kings also combines some of the strongest aspects of Crown Duel, the Wren Trilogy and A Posse of Princesses-strong friendships between and adventures with girls with wildly different and distinct personalities without sugarcoating them, and a slow, understated romance.
While Flian lived up to the expectations I had from Smith’s other books and the romance and overall plot were quite well done, I was surprised that I actually didn’t think much of the men, aside from Flian’s brother, Maxl, and Jason’s liegeman, Markham. Jaim is rather thinly characterized, and Garian is…Garian. Jason I’d probably like if it weren’t for the fact that he seems to have done nothing when Flian was being mistreated in the events leading up to her amnesia.
I’m looking forward to Smith’s book that comes out in a few weeks (though I think it’s been out in e-book format for a while) Once A Princess which apparently features a mother and daughter team trying to reclaim a fae world from the evil king who stole it from them. Or something.