I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked the romance, but also found the plot and the events happening to be very disconnected and contrived.
Valda is the heir of the Sky Kingdom, and she was prophesied to meet her soulmate, the heir of the Sea Kingdom, on her 25th birthday. But the Sea Kingdom was destroyed by a storm years before and the princess was lost. Maris is a Sealian who was orphaned as an infant and adopted by a Skylian soldier. While the Sky Kingdom sheltered the nation-less Sealians, the Sealians were also strongly discriminated against in the kingdom. Maris, with the help of her childhood friend, gets a job at the palace to help with the festivities celebrating Princess Valda's 25th birthday, but when the princess is cursed and left blind, Maris is tasked to assist the now-blind princess. Without her sight, the princess cannot establish a soulmate bond, but she cannot deny the attraction growing between her and her assistant.
The plot made zero sense, and that messed with my reading experience. One of the things that was so confusing to me, is how a lot of relevant things just happen off-screen when the book spends so much time on events that seem not as important.
SPOILERY RANT:
Maris is a Sealian, working in a tavern. It's explicitly said that Sealians have a very hard time finding work because of rampant discrimination. Somehow, her best friend who works as a maid at the palace, manages to get Maris hired, even though no Sealian is really allowed to work there. Then, right as she was going in to work, she stumbles upon the neighbouring country's prince who decides to just bring her to the Queen to fast-track her application. The Queen is said to distrust Sealians but right that moment she's like "ok let's hire her", for no reason (especially since she was shown to get angry when Valda hired a Sealian soldier). Then Maris, despite having worked there for one day, is sent to take care of the birthday festivities. And of course, when Valda is being cursed, Maris is the only one who can?? tackle Valda??? and that prompts the Queen to order Maris as Valda's assistant????? No one looked into this girl, no background check nothing she was just tasked to assist Valda who is now blind. Maris is a Sealian without any known family background who appears on Valda's 25th birthday, the day Valda was supposed to meet her soulmate, the princess to the Sea Kingdom. Hmmmmm, I wonder who Maris could actually be. But also, Maris is almost 21, and of course the soulmate system only reveals one soulmate after their 21st birthday. This felt sooo contrived and random, only made to fit the story. Anyway, the politics of this book sucked, oh, the General who was splattered with blood when Valda's dad died and who has been openly hostile towards Valda and literally threatened her & Maris multiple times is the villain??? No way. I feel like the book should've either hidden his agenda for the surprise, or used him as a red herring to hide another villain, because this felt so lazy. The side characters were flat and uninteresting, I wanted to like Maris' maid best friend, and I was excited to see she had a love character, but this was all off screen and only a mention and I was so disappointed. Kayden, the neighbouring country's Prince and Valda's best friend was fun as hell too, I wanted to see more of him but nope.
The romance was fine, but the fact that the plot was so disappointing ruined it a little for me. Also at first, Valda feels a little too comfortable using her power and status to order Maris around and I was like ew no, but then they start to have sex and be whipped for each other and that was cute as hell.
But it was just not enough to make me forget the whole debacle of the plot, plus the huge amount of typos and editing mistakes, kinda killed the hype I had for this book. I will probably keep the next book in my PTR for now (it's coming out next year) but I'll see how I feel then. I do want to see more of the other characters, though...... but yeah, plot-wise, the "twist" at the end was pretty obvious and I'm not really all that invested in the main story, oops.