The Prince by Tiffany Reisz (The Original Sinners #3)
Erotic Contemporary
Releases: November 20, 2012
Harlequin

Reviewed by Mandi

The Prince is book three of the Original Sinners series by Tiffany Reisz. A continuing story that revolves around writer and retired dominatrix Nora Sutherland. At the end of The Angel, Nora ran from Søren into the arms of her beloved, virginal Wes. This broke my heart, as I went from fearing/hating Søren in book one, to falling in love with his sadistic self in book two.

We have three storylines occurring in The Prince, which I’m going to break down and give my thoughts on each one.

Søren/Kingsley – Past. We go deep into Søren and Kingsley’s past in this one as Tiffany Reisz gives the story of Søren and Kingsley meeting and falling in love as older teenagers. At least, Kingsley falls hard in love with Søren. At this point in Søren’ s life, Kingsley is the first person he has let touch him since his sister raped him when he was eleven. Due to his very dark past, he needs pain to get aroused. He not only gives his trust to Kingsley with his secrets, but his body too. Kingsley soaks in this pain, getting off on fear himself. He lusts after Søren and becomes addicted to him. They sneak off together as much as possible, to sate their lusts. Søren, always in control of the entire situation, and Kingsley loving every second of it.

I really enjoyed getting their back story. In previous book I didn’t realize just what hold Søren had (and still has) over Kingsley. This back story is imperative as we need to know how they met, so we can understand their relationship in present day.

Søren/Kingsley – Present. Søren married Kingsley’s sister, to only have her die in a horrific accident a short while later. This changed the course of their lives. Kingsley leaves and Søren takes vows to become a priest. This ended their physical relationship, but as we learn, Kingsley still loves Søren more than anything in this world. While Søren can wear a mask of complete indifference, deep down, he still craves Kingsley too. We see such a vulnerability between them in this book. Especially Kingsley, who wears his emotions for Søren on his sleeve. Søren has Nora now though, and when she leaves him for Wes, Søren leans on Kingsley a little harder, which he doesn’t mind at all. There is still more to explore in their relationship, because I don’t feel like it has wrapped yet. I was disappointed not to have Juliette in this story (Kingsley’s love). She seems to be very precious to him, and I would have liked to see him think about her more, or interact with her, as he deals with his feelings for Søren.

Nora/Wes – Nora and Wes have a difficult relationship. Nora can’t quite get Wes out of her system, although she tries. When Søren in essence hands Wes over to her, she goes to his Kentucky home to see if she really wants to be with him. She discovers he is ‘The Prince of Kentucky’ , deep in the heart of horse country and an heir to more money than Nora can ever fathom. Wes is now 20, and still a virgin, and still deeply in love with Nora. And still ‘vanilla,’ something Nora is not. Can she be happy with him, and no kink? The story starts to answer that question, but I feel like we didn’t dive super far into their relationship. There is the pull and tug between Nora needing and wanting kinky sex and Wes a virgin and trying to show her he loves her without inflicting pain. There is a side suspense story that I got tired of related to horses.

Nora and Wes’s page time in this book is…forgetful. It didn’t impact me at all and I feel there is no resolution to their courtship. The story does end abruptly related to the two of them and I can only assume we will get definite answers in book four. But I didn’t love their page time together.

The ending – The ending is a big cliffhanger. When you read this sentence:

As a small child Wesley had heard the phrase “the wrath of God” in church, and sat and wondered what that meant, what that sounded like.

Now he knew.

You will shiver. I’m still shivering.

There is a big suspense part in the present day of the book involving Søren and Kingsley. I had it figured out before it was revealed, yet I didn’t realize the ramifications until they were spelled out for me. I also am not sold on this yet. Right now (and we really haven’t dived into this storyline yet) it feels a little – too out there to be believable. Too silly.  But I’ll withhold judgment until we get all the details in book four. Also at one point, Kingsley figures it all out but decides not to tell anyone, which then leads to disaster. This bothered me..why wouldn’t he immediately tell the people who this concerned?

I need the Mistress to not only directly solve the cliffhanger in this book, but I want to see where all of these relationships are going. Wes/Nora, Nora/ Søren. Kingsley/Søren, Nora/Kingsley – will we end with some definite combinations or will they all still be flitting back and forth to each other? I’m very curious to see how this all plays out.

The Prince didn’t hold the same impact as The Siren or The Angel. We spent a lot of time in the past, which I enjoyed, but I feel present day stalled out a little bit. I was expecting more from the Nora and Wes storyline and I’m not sold on the cliffhanger ending.  I suppose I need to be patient and see how it all plays out in book four. The emotions between Søren and Kingsley are what will stick with me from this book, as they are very well done.

Rating: B-

Recent Reviews:
Babbling About Books and More – A
Bookaholic Cat – 4.5/5
Let’s Get Romantical – 4/5
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