A review by merrrry
Prince's Gambit by C.S. Pacat

4.5

Ok. I get it. I wholeheartedly understand the hype now. the last chunk of this had me REELING. I went in a lil skeptical, but still expecting a good time, and it delivered far beyond my expectations. With the bulk of the world building out of the way, we got time for some wonderful character work. The characterizations of Damen, Laurent and the side characters, and the interactions between characters was so unbelievably well done. Their relationship was subtle in all the ways that good romances are, while maintaining a tense pace for the underlying plot. I was absolutely inhaling the political intrigue in this one. I often find overly politically heavy plots dense and draining, but this one has me in a choke hold. The last third of this was a whole journey omg. Having seen how things play out in this book, I also now appreciate the first book a lot more. So much of this relied on little things that were established previously, and we don't directly see the main antagonist at all this book, so I was extra impressed by how often I'd go “ahhh ya that makes sense” as I remember a tidbit from the first volume that related to something happening in this one. I'm just having fun reading this, and I'm genuinely excited to read the third one as soon as I can. I can't wait to see the fallout of all the stuff that happened at the end of this book.