How to Find a Princess

Finishing this for bingo reasons, but it's like 85% of the book and they just now got to the made-up country that Makeda is possibly princess of. I don't mind a slow burn but the pacing here was bizarre, with most of the time spent on a cargo ship and a ton of interchangeable characters (except the dude that's clearly setup for a third book in this series). This just absolutely did not click for me and I would probably have DNFed under non-bingo circumstances.

Adding after finishing this one: woof. The pacing is even more bizarre once they get to Ibarania, with a completely out of left field resolution to the princess/inheritance situation, and absolutely no denouement or even an epilogue. Just really weird and by far my least favorite Alyssa Cole.

(2022 Summer Romance Bingo: takes place in made-up country.)

Two really great characters in Bez and Makeda–loved seen an ADHD love interest in Bez and how she moved through the world with her particularness, and Makeda's journey to serve herself before serving literally everybody else was super relatable.

The ending came like a bat out of hell, though–from where? How? Like, it was set up in a small way, but the pacing and the amount of time dedicated to it vs. the rest of the book gave me whiplash.

Would recommend to others just to see Bez and Makeda's characters unfold, but with a warning.