Rating: 2/5 
 ***Minor spoilers*** 
 Princess Lia wants to marry for love, but because she is the firstborn daughter in the royal family, her marriage must be arranged to strengthen alliances. Because of this, Lia and her maid/friend Pauline run away from the palace and desert the kingdom. Lia's father, the king, sends out patrols for her so that she may be brought back and executed. The prince she was supposed to marry seeks her. An assassin from the "barbarians" of Venda looks to kill her. She must do her best to hide and blend in so that she may be safe. 
 I thought the first 60% of this book was extremely boring. I didn't want to hear about how she was waiting tables and putting sheets on the clothesline or picking blackberries for wine. I expected a book this long to have the excitement start earlier than about 60% into the book, but unfortunately this wasn't the case. 
 There were two major disappointing things in this book for me. The first was the love triangles. I already think love triangles are ridiculous. But this one was awful. It was one of the love triangles where the female lead spends the majority of the book pondering which boy is more attractive or which one she should love. Not only that, but she also hops between boys. She flirts with the other to make one jealous. She wants to kiss one, then wants to kiss the other. It was ridiculous, honestly. 
 The second thing was that this book was labelled fantasy, but I barely saw any fantasy-like things whatsoever. In the entire book, the only thing that could be considered slightly "fantastical" (is that the word?) was that there was mention of some "gift." It's never mentioned specifically what this "gift" thing is, but to me in sounded like some instinct of the heart, but sometimes it was mentioned that there were visions. Anyway, there just wasn't enough fantasy for me to consider this a fantasy novel. For the most part, all the fantasy sounding things in the book were religious beliefs. 
 I only began to enjoy this book at all in the last 20-30% where things actually happened besides Lia working at a tavern all the time. If stuff started happening before 60-70% in, I probably would've rated this book around 3.5 or 4. (view spoiler)[ I must admit that the true identities of Rafe and Kaden did surprise me. At first I thought it was just me that mixed them up, but when I realized some others did as well, I thought it was pretty clever. The discovery made me have to think back to everything that happened before. (hide spoiler)] I did find the ending disappointing though, since it was a cliffhanger. I didn't enjoy this book that much so I'm not sure if I want to read the second book just to find out what happens. 
 Overall, I wasn't too impressed by this book, but it became better towards the end. If you plan to read this, I'd advise not to go in expecting fantasy. Don't pick up this book if you hate love triangles, because this one is worse than the average love triangle. If you're okay with love triangles, you'll probably have a better time. Regardless, don't set your expectations too high, and don't expect action until later in the book.