Scribd popped this up in my recommended reads (pre-romance purge) and I added it to my TBR mostly because a) the cover is pretty and b) stories about princes and intrigue and soldiers and whatnot are fun! And yeah, Bound turned out to be a pretty fun book. Its best feature is its characters, who are full of emotional depth and heartbreak, aka my siren song. They’re also fun because they have such great personalities, though there’s also plenty of plot to keep things interesting. There are disguises! Spies and courtly knightly people! Wartime camp stuff! Castles and myths and yearning! Slowly falling in love despite starting off on a very bad foot! Multiple adorable couples! Friendship!! Interesting tidbits about the world it’s set in! Mostly it’s a pseudo-European (Germanic?) place with magical elements; not really medieval (thank god) but definitely set somewhere in The Past. The interesting thing comes from how each country interacts with one another, and how one of the side effects of the quest plot is to reunite all of them into one. Like King Arthur! Love me some Arthurian undertones, y’all. I also liked how each country had its own cultural heritage, how each society had a different social personality, as it were. Made it much more fun to read than if it were set in one boring homogeneous white bread place. Bound is a fairly long book, but it never felt like I was slogging through anything. The writing style had something to do with it. It flows in a way that edges of flowery but doesn’t cross over into purple prose, and it does a good job of balancing romance and adventure. Plus, again, the characters were SO much fun. I was very much invested in the various protagonists and their struggles (romantic and otherwise) and it has the kind of war-intrigue-questions plot that I’m definitely into. I had a very good time reading it and I want to read the other books in this series so badly that I went out and bought them soon after finishing this one. (Something that almost never happens, y’all!) There’s one downside: not enough talking, named female characters who don’t die and who play an important role in the plot. There are some who fit one or two of those categories, but only ONE who fits all of them and she doesn’t show up until nearly the end. I have high hopes for the other two books, though! And luckily it doesn’t matter all that much that I read this middle book first, as each one can stand along (though they’re tied in by place and mythological characters, I think). Read: July 3-4, 2015