#BookReview – “The Barefoot Princess” by Christina Dodd

Blurb

Once upon a time...in a kingdom high in the Pyrenees, three young princesses were forced to flee the chaos in their land -- vanishing without a trace and lost to their people...until the day a courageous prince can bring each princess home.

Life in exile has taught the passionate Princess Amy to hate injustice, and on the enchanting English isle of Summerwind, she finds injustice personified in the powerful and wickedly handsome Jermyn Edmondson, marquess of Northcliff. Since he has stolen the islanders' livelihood, Amy decides to steal him. She kidnaps the arrogant nobleman, chains him with his own manacles, and holds him for ransom.

It's a simple plan, destined to succeed. Surely Jermyn's uncle will pay his ransom. Alas, his uncle would be delighted if someone killed his nephew and left him to inherit the title and fortune. And holding the furious, guileful, sensual Jermyn chained in her basement provides a challenge to Amy's restraint...and her virtue.

How could such a little revenge and blackmail go so passionately wrong? 

Review

In the second book in the Lost Princesses trilogy, Princess Amy of Beaumontagne is in trouble, but she’s too stubborn to realize it. After she left her sister Clarise two years earlier, she’s lived a life of danger and finally finds a home on the small English island of Summerwind. Now friends with the villagers, Amy is appalled to learn that a dastardly marquess owns the island. The people are starving and in danger of losing their decrepit homes because they cannot pay the rent. So she decides to put a stop to it and kidnaps the marquess to hold him for ransom.

Jermyn Edmondon, the marquess of Northcliff, wakes up chained to a cot in a cellar. He doesn’t know why he’s there or why his kidnapper, Amy, hates him with a passion. He’s arrogant, rude, a male chauvinist, and he believes himself so superior to everyone around him, especially the women. As he and Amy butt heads, he begins to realize his lazy, carefree lifestyle has threatened to ruin the lives of the people he once respected. Not only that, the crooked manager of his estate may be the real threat to his life, not the mysterious, sensual Amy.

Amy is a wonderful heroine, but her temper often gets the better of her. Of the three princesses, she was always the wild one who broke the rules in the name of justice. She’s strong, passionate, and willing to do anything for those she cares about.

Jermyn is a very unlikable character at first. His disdain, coldness, and haughtiness irritated me—as the author surely intended for her readers—but his attitude hides deep pain. Once his back story is revealed, I sympathized with him. I definitely loved the way he matured in captivity and the way Amy grew to trust her own feelings in the sexy marquess’s arms.

Other than stray POV shifts that I’ve come to expect, there were a few typos like repeated back-to-back words and missing words. I noticed a few inconsistencies between books 1 and 2. For example: in book 1, Prince Rainger was imprisoned for eight years. In book 2, it’s seven years. Despite little things like that, I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading Rainger and Sorcha’s story, the conclusion to the trilogy.

4 Stars