The Warrior’s Princess Prize (Princesses of the Alhambra, 3)
Alhambra, 1399. The Warrior’s Princess Prize follows the story of Zorahaida, princess and quasi-captive to her father’s violent whims. When a tournament champion names her as his desired prize, Zorahaida must battle her conflicting emotions. Torn between anger at the presumption of the man who threatens to tear her from the causes she’s devoted to and excitement at the prospect of leaving her gilded cage, the princess embarks on a book-long struggle to come to terms with her feelings and desires. Jasim ibn Ismail, knight of famed chivalry and unwitting cause of this conflict, likewise struggles between his initial motivations for the proposal and the feelings that develop as they begin to know one another. Can they come together to find a mutual understanding of happiness?
This is the third in a three-part series but can be read independently. It was written based on “The Legend of the Three Beautiful Princesses,” and each book explores one of the three sisters. Although the story was intriguing, I struggled at times with the prose (over-use of names in dialogue, awkward phrasing) and character-building (Zorahaida mourns that Jasim doesn’t trust her, then continues to work against him), but Townend provides great historical details and delivers on scene-setting minutiae.
