Bound to the Shadow Prince is a stand alone novel outside of any of the worlds that we have previously read about by Ruby Dixon. I was excited to read something outside of the Ice Planet Barbarians series by Ruby Dixon, but big blue alien men with horns and a tail are still my kink. The story is single PoV and follows two characters Princess Candra, of Lios and Prince Nemeth of Darkfell. Candra, the narrator of our story, is the throw away princess. She has a blood illness and is barren so her entire life is being pampered, taking lovers and play around with court intrigues. That is until she is told her sister, the one slotted to be the sacrifice to the tower has died in a shipwreck and she has three days before she will take her place in the Tower with a Prince of their enemy.

Unprepared to live on her own, Candra ends up as the sacrifice to a Goddess, to go live in the Tower for seven years with the enemy of her people. She has no skills, has never cooked for herself and has to take a medicine by syringe daily for her blood illness, one she now has to make for herself. She was not prepared to live on her own in a dark tower. Nemeth, on the other hand, has been living with scholars and monks for years preparing to be the sacrifice. They are enemies but if Candra is going to survive, she is going to need some help from Nemeth or she will need to kill him to take all of his supplies.

It took a little while to warm to Candra. She is spoiled and a little whiny about her situation and doesn’t like to read *gasp*. But as she struggles alone in the tower, she becomes a better person in general. She learns some lessons, becomes more kind and appreciative of those who served her previously (although she treated her favorites well) and becomes a character you can root for. I like Nemeth from the beginning though. We don’t get real interaction with him for quite awhile but when we do you can tell he is a good and kind man. I was extremely interested in his culture and people and the differences between the lore of his people compared to Candra’s. They turn from friends to lovers in their tower isolation but when they yearly supplies don’t show up after a few years they must decide. Stay in the tower and starve, or leave and feel the wrath of the goddess on their people.

I enjoyed this story quite a bit overall. The sex scenes were spicy and the overall story line was really interesting. The pacing struggled in a few spots, especially once Candra and Nemeth left the Tower in search of what happened to all the people. I would have liked a little better flow in the beginning 15% and final 30%. I did like the reveal at the end and while sad, how the Goddess took her revenge out on the people of Lios and Darkfell while they were in the tower and the twist to the story. The lore and history of both cultures was really interesting to me as well. So the only reason I took a few stars off is for pacing since I think it will really affect others’ enjoyment of the story.

If you are new to Ruby Dixon, I highly recommend one of her books in the Ice Planet Barbarians series. But this could give you a decent understanding of her writing ability.

Instead of alien smut, how about some Monster Smut?
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Review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/🌶️🌶️🌶️🪢
This book is much longer than her Ice Planet books at over 536 pages.

To appease a scornful goddess, someone from the royal lines of both the humans and the Fellians must sacrifice themselves to be imprisoned in a tower for 7 years. Once they are inside the tower, they cannot leave before their time is up without causing famine and wrath from the goddess.

The Fellians are a bat/gargoyle-like species who are much larger than humans with a hard skin and knees that bend backwards, and fangs.

Oh and there is a knot and lots of knotting. In fact, the knot is mentioned 136 times. 🪢
“I want your knot”. “You want my knot?” “You take my knot so well”, etc
😈
The story reminds me a little of a mix between Rapunzel (with the tower) and Beauty and the Beast if both the Belle and the Beast were trapped together and have to work together, but the Beast was the one who liked to read.

They have to learn how to trust each other (the enemy) in order to make it through their time in the tower. All while their species are going to war against each other outside of the tower.

The author’s note at the end mentioned it was based a little on the Trojan wars.

Anyway, the writing was ok, I mean it’s a monster smut with the mention of a knot 136 times, but it was a fun and spicy book with political intrigue, war, and betrayal.
😈
The story wrapped up at the end, but I could see her continuing the series with side character stories like with her Ice Planet Barbarians series. However, it’s not listed as #1, so it might be a standalone.

Lmao Candra is my spirit animal and these characters in this reel definitely feel right in their demeanors to Candromeda and Nemeth.
Candra is from the sought after royal legendary bloodline but she had tainted blood and can not bear children so she has been off doing whatever she wants in court. She’s been told she is basically worthless but her name still protects her. They need her since every 30 years they have to send one of her blood line to a tower with one of her enemies bloodline. Her sister had been trained her whole life but a freak accident sent her with no notice instead.
This girl is chronically ill and a princess. And they threw her in a dark tower with no windows with a monster. Well for all the stories she thought he was a monster but after their first year he turned out to be more caring then her human caregivers. And omg this girl was thirsting after him. And his wing shiver when she flirted with him was adorable. Yes he had wings, horns and different anatomy, but he was a bookish introvert. She was a saucy extrovert and omg I need fan art and pictures of these two. I can’t tell the size difference but I want to see it lol.
I have already told too much but just now this is a very fun adventure. And definitely not all folk tales are built on fact.
Why am I not seeing this book more on here? Please we all need to read or try this one. Just fyi he wouldn’t go farther than 1st base with her until she put a ring on it.
This is a cozy romance until around 50-60% then it goes off the rail. But there’s an hea. Phew finally. I really hope there’s more of this world. I love her worlds.

I adored this book! That’s not surprising considering I’m a huge fan of Ruby Dixon but this was different from her usual spicy sci-fi style and leaned more into fantasy by far. I wasn’t a huge fan of Candra (the FMC) in the beginning as she was arrogant and selfish to a fault… but she went through a lot of character development and became a character I thoroughly connected with. Nemeth (MMC) is a dream OMG! Spicy, sweet, scholarly, and a knot to tie the package together? Sign me UP!
I did get a little bored towards the middle because I worried nothing was going to happen (as much of the story occurs within the confines of a tower) but oh boy did things happen shortly after! Everything comes together and the action packed last half had me on the edge of my seat! I’m absolutely obsessed with this book and I so hope there’s more to come someday!

A princess is locked away in a tower for 7 years and her only company is a Monstrous prince from an enemy race. I’m a fan of fantasy so hey this sounded good.
THE BIG PROBLEM: in my humble opinion this book should have been edited down. This book is terribly long. The ebook is 55 chapters. The audiobook is 21 hours. And you’re initially talking about a book that has two characters locked in a tower together who don’t even really speak for the first 9 chapters. So it's pretty slow. . I don't need to read whole chapters about cooking stew and candles and medicine. It gets repetitive in the Princess’ head.
the logistics of being locked in a tower designed like this one don't make sense to me at all. The tower has no door and *no windows* - not even slits to let in light or air. She spends the first few months just sitting in the dark. She has nothing but work to do - no books, no sewing, nothing. How did they expect her to pass her 7 years like that. In the first year there are periods of many weeks where doesn’t speak to anyone. Not to mention the food situation - they get a year's worth of food delivered. No fresh fruit and veggies so they're probably both going to die from malnourishment.
Basically they then turn it into a free for all alien/human forced proximity sex thing. This almost became a DNF for me. I know there will be people who like it just for the spice. I am apparently not that person.

Ruby Dixon does it again with another knockout fantasy book! I love the forced proximity, enemies to lovers tropes in this book. It was steamy and everything I expected from Ruby..

What a rollercoaster ride of a story!

Overall a 4.5 stars for me, rounded up to a 5 star read & my first novel by Ruby Dixon 🙂
I enjoyed her writing style, it was direct but descriptive enough to immerse me into the story, characters and world. I will definitely read more from her!

The spice level in this one is *high*, so be warned!

The way the premise was set for this book, I thought we were in for a 7year romance ride in a tower for our characters, but I’m here to tell you that the world definitely opens up more! The plot itself is such a roller coaster and I never really knew what was going to happen (after the romance of course). I really enjoy that element of surprise in the plot, and it was fun to be taken on this rollercoaster.

I enjoyed both of our characters, they were both very distinct. We have our FMC who is seductive, sassy and rebellious and we have our MMC who is dutiful, family bound and reserved. Their interactions were intense, fun and spicy and I really enjoyed their dynamic throughout the whole book.

The worldbuilding and the lore are tied in as one. We get one side of the lore between the two warring regions from our FMC who we are introduced to first and then we learn about the other side of the lore later on in the book. I enjoyed that the book went beyond the world it had been set on and that we got to see more of the world through our MCs eyes. I do feel as though we could’ve gotten more of the world and more explanation as certain stories and lore were more hollow than expected but it was just enough for this standalone.

Overall I certainly enjoyed my time reading this one, it was spicy with romance and tons of political intrigue included with fantasy, magic and warring peoples. There was a lot going on but would recommend it for any reader who wants a fun and intense fantasy romance standalone!

The repetition of the storyline in the beginning bothered me, but I really liked the female character her quirky positive attitude. The enemies to lovers story drew me in, and the plot was unexpected enough to keep me reading the end.

Aghhhhhh okay so here’s the deal. This is the 23rd book I have read by Ruby Dixon (yes, I counted). Suffice it to say, I was one of the girlies who got through the pandemic by the grace of the Barbarians series, which I still love and will always return to read more of, because I still have another 15-20 to get through (bless!).

I knew this was a brand new book set in a brand new world, but for some reason I thought the formula would remain the same, in terms of a rather bite-size novel, helmed by incredibly strong FMC and lovable and selfless MMCs, with some very good plot sprinkled amongst some equally good, if not better, smut and romance. While this book did definitely have the latter, the former things were suspiciously absent. Let me elaborate.

For starters, this book was over 500 pages long. I cannot for the life of me figure out why it was this long, given that the actual PLOT beyond the two leads getting hot and heavy didn’t really kick in until the last 50-100 pages. I found myself bored at some of the repetition of the first 300 pages, and the actual interesting plot stuff that occurred at the end felt rushed and in some ways nonsensical. I would have loved the pacing to be adjusted so that we could actually get a bit more plot and character development in some of the folks who were tossed in at the end.

I also really struggled with the main characters. Candra is so selfish for the first 50% of the story, to the point of nauseating. And she has her motivations; I’m not saying it is unrealistic, but I just could barely bring myself to root for her when all I could do for chapters and chapters was roll my eyes and yell “get over yourself” at my phone. As for Nemeth, there were elements of him that felt a bit too “old world man”, insofar as he consistently seemed hell bent on dictating what Candra could and couldn’t do, all in the name of protecting her, and I wish the man would get a grip and shut up so the woman could decide for herself. The last 100 pages were particularly infuriating for his character arc, and I personally wished for more groveling. If you read it, you’ll get where I’m coming from.

On the whole, I still love Ruby Dixon and she will always be an auto-read author for me. It is entirely possible that this book fell a bit flat for me due to my insanely high expectations of her novels, and in that case, this was sooooo on me. If, generally speaking, you’re just looking for some fun human/monster smut (let’s be realP like in all of Ruby’s books, we are getting into non-human parts here, so time for some very innovative monster content) with some very very light political intrigue, and a FMC who does indeed have a great growth arc, this is the book for you. I give it a hearty 3⭐

*Thank you again to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

Princess Candra of the Kingdom of Lios has always known that she is the royal daughter who is useless. She was born with a blood disease that makes her infertile so she is of no value to the noble men in the palace court. She has spent her entire life learning how to navigate the world of palace politics but she doesn’t know much about anything else. When she is suddenly told that she will be sent away to be dedicated to the gods, she is angry and scared. She will have to spend 7 years locked in a tower with a representative from Darkfell. Lios and Darkfell are enemies so will Candra be able to live with a representative from Darkfell for 7 years?
Candra has a huge growth curve. She faces struggles surviving from the minute she enters the tower. The author did a good job showing how she started out feeling useless at the beginning and how that led to her acting like a spoiled princess after getting to the tower and then how she slowly became capable and strong. I have avoided introducing Candra’s roommate in the tower until this point because the book is from Candra’s perspective. So from her perspective, Nemeth is a scary monster at the beginning of the story. She has good reasons to believe he is a monster. The author does a good job showing how Candra works through a lifetime of believing something that simply does not apply to Nemeth. She remains unsure if her beliefs apply to other Fellians. I thought that was very believable. It showed how smart and thoughtful Candra was. The author chose to make Nemeth “perfect”. I thought his perfection was a weak part of the story since I wanted him to have some kind of imperfection to make him feel more realistic. The backdrop for this story is a looming war between Candra’s people and Nemeth’s people. The author shows the negative consequences of war. There is a twist in the story but I’m not going to give any hints.
This is a sweeping story set in a mythical world with humans and Fellians living in tenuous peace. The gods are real and rain down destruction when they are made unhappy. There is a love story that is integral to the overall story. I read this story without any idea what I was about to read but I was pleasantly surprised in the end. This story is set in a time where women still wear complex gowns during the day, farmers live in small cottages outside the walls of the castle and travel is slow going. This story takes place over a period of years. I am interested to read more from this author in the future.

Two royals from warring races are walled up inside a tower to appease the gods. Princess Candra was unprepared to sacrifice her life for her people, but she's the only available choice to enter a remote tower for seven years. At first, she's antagonistic towards her tower-mate Nemeth, but as the months pass they both come to depend on and care for one another. When they discover that the war between their nations may have begun under false pretenses, they must brave the outside world's judgement of their relationship if they hope to save their people. Beware those that underestimate Ruby Dixon's ability to write based on spice and blue barbarians - romantasy readers looking for longer stories will eat this up.

I absolutely love this book. I have read several of this authors books and was thrilled when I was picked to receive an ARC from Net Galley. The imagination to create this world is definitely beyond anything my brain could think up. I liked flow of the book, it just worked for me, however I could see how some might think it is slow. There was drama, action, love, very spicy scenes, plot twist etc. I will say this book could be triggering for some regarding starvation, war etc. My only negative was I had trouble picturing the MMC.

I thoroughly enjoyed my first monster romance ( not my typical genre lol). Knotting is something new for me too. Anyone who enjoys a good, winged, hot shadow daddy will love Nemeth. I loved that this was a stand-alone and not multiple books. The buildup and character growth from start to finish for both Candra & Nemeth was very well done. Lots of very hot spice & there was a good plot too. I swear every time the book seemed to have a dull moment there was a spice scene that made it all worth it. Definitely whet my curiosity for this genre.

4 stars

Bound to The Shadow Prince is Ruby Dixon newest novel, it is a Fantasy romance. It has some of my favorite tropes in it including Enemies to lovers and forced proximity. The writing was good, and the story was entertaining. I was so excited when I got approved to read a copy. This new series is so exciting and different from other books I have read by her. It's got magic, two kingdoms at odds, and ancient curses. I really found the Fellian people to be fascinating, dark and mysterious. I loved Nemeth at the beginning of the story. He was standoffish and growly. As we got to know his character, he turned out to be very attentive and sweet also, but then he took a turn there at the end because of events and choices he made, and I was like what the heck! Candra behaved a bit childish throughout the book when it came to certain things. I got that impression mostly from her inner dialogue she came across that way to me anyway, she was still a character that I did enjoy following. The plot and relationship development in this story were my favorite parts. I did think that it was a little too long, some parts I was ready to move on from what's happening and pick up the pace. Other than that, I had a great time reading this book. It was also very spicy, about a 3 on the scale, loved the fantasy setting, would recommend this book and I am excited for the next in the series.
I received an advance ebook copy, via Netgalley. This review is my own honest opinion.

I loved it. I have enjoyed every Ruby Dixon book I have read and this one was no exception. I will have a full review post coming soon to IG/TT.

I love Ruby Dixon and the way that she writes. I had high expectations for this book and it didn't disappoint.

This was my first Ruby Dixon book that wasn't ice planet barbarians. It was the same tension I loved when I read IPB, but it had more of a star-crossed lovers, enemies to lovers edge that I really enjoyed.

Something Ruby does really well is characters and character development. The only thing I didn't like was I wanted more out of the plot. The romance was done so well but there wasn't much to this book other than romance.

The book captured and held my attention.great world building and ruby dixon described everything so I pictured it perfectly. I loved how in detail the mating ceremony was. Overall it was a fun read

I really loved Ruby Dixon’s writing but unfortunately I don’t think monster romance is for me so I DNF. Still I just think it’s a matter of tastes rather than quality writing. I thought the author was a talented story teller and could write a compelling prose within her genre.

I feel that I should warn you right off the bat that this is a long read. Ruby has a few other books like this and I felt that I should let you know that it took me a couple of sittings to read this. Now that said if you like fantasy romance this is unique and highly engaging.

Imagine being stuck in a windowless tower for seven years with your enemy? Talk about forcing you to face pretty much everything! The story is told from Candra’s POV which gives us all her fear, despair, and loneliness during the first few months in the tower. I’m going to be honest and say that I was a little worried how she was going to survive all that time in the dark.

Candra is a spoiled princess with a life-threatening illness managed by daily medicine. Never meant to spend the seven years in the tower she is unprepared for being alone in the dark. What I do love about her is that while she was Initially selfish she does change over time into a completely different person. I mean who wouldn’t! While Nemeth appears dangerous and grumpy at first we learn that he is shy, kind, and patient.

This book has some very explicit scenes and is super spicy so be warned! The spice is good and honestly I enjoyed how well developed the characters were. There were just some issues for me. Honestly, was I not such a fan of Ruby Dixon’s I would have rated this much lower.

The whole food situation had me so confused. Like food and water for a whole year gets delivered but they are in a dark, windowless and doorless tower. Where was the storage? I felt like the tower could have been better explained. It just needed a little TLC.

The other thing that bothered me, as I said before was that I thought this was part of a series and not a standalone. The title made me think that it was since it is very similar to other titles in that series. There were also things about this book that seemed like they could have been part of that series but then again maybe not.

I suggest you read it for yourself and form your own opinion. It is not a bad story at all.

I was very intrigued by the plot of this book, but the story fell flat for me. I understand the FMC is going through a huge change for her and is learning how to do these things, but she is just so insufferable and I cannot stand her. Because of this, it was very hard for me to get through this book and this book is LONG. I don't think it needed to be so long and we didn't need to be in the tower for as long as we did (yes, I know this is the premise of the whole book but it was too much and dragged imo).