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The Angel and the Prince

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Lady Knight
The daughter of a French nobleman, Ryen De Bouries wields a sword and rides a destrier as magnificently as the knights of King Charles VI. In place of glittering ballgowns, she wears shining armor; instead of practicing gentle arts, she battles the Englishmen she despises. Those who whisper her name in fear and awe call her the Angel of Death.

Captive Prince
Bryce Princeton is the dreaded Prince of Darkness, a British lord driven by a desire for conquest and revenge. He leads his vanquishing army into France...only to be captured by a fierce-hearted slip of a woman. Ryen is a maid trained in arms, but an innocent in a contest of passion. So, in the shadows of his prison cell, the sensual nobleman refuses to yield. Instead he woos her with a passion no woman dare trust—nor resist.

448 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 1996

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671 people want to read

About the author

Laurel O'Donnell

83 books243 followers

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5 stars
177 (39%)
4 stars
135 (29%)
3 stars
90 (19%)
2 stars
36 (7%)
1 star
14 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
Profile Image for Erin.
262 reviews133 followers
March 29, 2015
The Cover is Beautiful and I want it painted on my bedroom wall-( 1996 Zebra books cover). When I saw the cover i was in love.
description

I was looking for a medieval book with a tough heroine and and alpha male-and boy did I find it.

GREAT book-The Heroine,Ryen is a Knight/warrior woman but not so much that you can't see she is still a woman-She i basically a tomboy-hates dresses, rather be out side with the boys type of girl. So when she meets Byrce,The Prince Of Darkness, she knows all about his ''legand'' and he calls her beautiful under the influence of tuth powder-anyway with his being so sexy and mysterious and stuff-she obviously wants to jump his bones. But never dreams of it until her BROTHER,Andre suggests she let of some steam with him. Problem, Ryen is a virgin, having never being interested in men as she is in Byrce.

The Hero,Byrce...Needs to be directed to my bedroom. That is all.
He is completely Possessive and oh so honerable. He is also ready to start yell the 'SHE IS MINE' and 'YOU ARE MINE''s at even given moment..I loved it.

The only let downs about this book is that

4 STARS
Profile Image for Laura.
Author 15 books613 followers
July 31, 2022
This is a book I read a long time ago, but for some reason it has stuck with me. (I stole this one from my mom-lol) It was one of my first Historicals, and one of the first books that I read several times (I think I was a in jr high school!-'90s) and I can't believe I got rid of it! If you want a good medieval story based in war, with a strong heroine and a very alpha male, it's a good read.
Profile Image for KatLynne.
547 reviews596 followers
June 6, 2011
Ryen - beautiful, intelligent young woman, well respected warrior and knighted in France, she is the leader of her warriors against England. Due to her great feats on the battle field, she is known as The Angel of Death and one of England's most hated enemies

Bryce - Strong, Alph-male; smokin' hot warrior, well respected in all of England and is known as the Prince of Darkness; he is one of France's most hated enemies.

Being a lover of medival romance, this book certainly fulfilled my craving for this genre. When these two meet, there is angst, distrust, hatred and also a great sensual pull, a desire so strong that cannot be ignored. Their honor and pledge to their countries keep them from admitting their feelings while also making each distrustful of the other.

I fell in love with both and truly enjoyed my first read by this author. There is the perfect balance of angst and sensual desire along with tenderness that kept me reading and enjoying this one.
Profile Image for KatieV.
710 reviews496 followers
August 12, 2016
I truly enjoyed this although, honestly, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it quite as much if I'd read it instead of listening to the audio. It was very long and I sit in front of a computer all day reading tiny lines of code, my poor eyes and head are losing their tolerance for long tomes such as this. Plus, I think the narrator did an excellent job. Some may nitpick about her not doing a French accent, but I'd rather forgo the accent than listen to one that is poorly done. Plus she really kept the listener engaged and added to the sense of suspense and excitement.

The setting is medieval. Sometime during the hundreds of years that France and England were trying to destroy one another. The story is action-packed and full of twists and turns that were not always predictable I was on the edge of my seat at times, unable to find a good stopping place so I could go to bed, etc. It all takes place in 5-6 months time, but so much happens that it's almost hard to believe. There are other things that are a bit unbelievable, but I was able to overlook them and still highly enjoy the story. Yet, I must quibble because I enjoy complaining. Plus if I wasn't emotionally engaged, I wouldn't care enough to bitch about it :)

The heroine, Ryen De Bouries (aka 'The Angel of Death') leads a French army against the English with her two older brothers under her command. Huh? I could have more easily swallowed that she was a knight under their command, yet highly regarded for her wit and strategic mind. When I think of a female knight, I can't help picturing Brienne from HBO's Game of Thrones who is as big as a man and would never be described as conventionally feminine. Ryen, on the other hand, is not very large. She's described as dainty and soft looking when not in armor and knows how to play the part of a Lady. She's skilled at swordplay and fighting, but relies on her wit more than her strength since she is not as strong as the male knights. I suppose it seemed more dramatic to the author to have her command the army that captured the infamous English Lord the Prince of Darkness, (Bryce Princeton). But I think it made the story less believable.

There were times when our "witty and cunning" heroine is TSTL. As a warrior who relies on brains not brawn, I think she should have been consistently portrayed as more sneaky and introspective about her actions than hot-headed or emotionally obvious. For example, why the heck didn't she just pretend she was still locked in her room when Bryce escaped her father's castle?! I fully expected her to do so. It's what I would have done. She'd have been off the hook. Also, she wakes up in an enemy stronghold after being unconscious for weeks. She's being fed and well tended, so I'd think a rational person would cool their heals and not immediately try to escape in bare feet with only a small dagger when they could barely walk a few steps before hurling due to head injuries. Still, I liked her and couldn't give her the dreaded TSTL tag. She was kind and very honorable, although after 5 years of war you'd think she'd be less shocked about the brutal realities of war. She stubbornly clung to a code of chivalry that everyone else seemed to follow at their convenience. Of course as the only woman, she had to be the best and follow the rules to the letter. That's how it works when you're in the minority.

The hero was the ultimate bad ass and could be swoon-worthy in his protectiveness toward Ryen and his love for his son. Still, there were times I wanted to smack the crap out of him. They both did a lot of wavering on their feelings for one another since they were enemies, but he was downright split personality at times. Ryen was much more consistent in her treatment of him than he of her. He could be flat out cruel. Also, I'm still torn on how I feel about his way of life. He lived in a castle that was dirty, smelly, and as far from civilized as you can imagine. He was hardly ever there, but when he did return I would have thought he'd try to straighten things up. The deal with letting the peasants starve unless they fought for food was possibly historically accurate, but off-putting. Like Ryen, I don't see how he could watch children starve, shrug his shoulders, and say 'only the strong survive'. Then again, that's probably how it was in medieval England. Peasants were basically chattel.

Just a random pop-culture observation: I couldn't help thinking of the Winchester boys from Supernatural during the H's imprisonment. Head injuries galore and beatings no one could just bounce back from in ten minutes. I've always said that, in real life, the Winchesters would be drooling somewhere in a long term care facility. Same goes for our hero, especially since his "angel" had no nifty special healing powers.

Some spoilery musings:
Profile Image for Jules2016.
174 reviews45 followers
December 20, 2016
If you like your books without an ounce of grounding in reality, to be totally implausible, with no build up to a romance, and filled with "filler" then this book might be for you.

To be honest it felt like this book was written by someone in junior high school. It wasn't terrible, but barely readable. A total skim fest for me.
Profile Image for Mary23nm.
763 reviews21 followers
May 7, 2015
It had promise, parts of the book were really good and I would check out more by this author before deciding.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Julie.
202 reviews3 followers
July 14, 2012
While reading this book, i've gotten so annoyed to the point where i almost stop reading the book, but at other times, all i could do was sigh in happiness. the rating for this book was between a 2 and a 4, so i settled on a 3. There was just so much going on and so many internal battles and misunderstandings that i just wanted to scream and cry and shout at whoever to just let them be together again ! TOO MUUCH DRAMA !

first, there couldn't be together because of their honor and loyalty to their country. and then it was revenge and false hatred that kept them from each other. and then there's a misunderstanding and all these other obstacles that keep them from each other. it's just...so exhausting to keep up with and not good for my heart. But then when they (the hero and heroines) finally get back together- you can't help but feel that it was all worth it.

I LOVE THIS PART: LOL

174 reviews2 followers
June 17, 2014
Really good story, not great character development.

There were things to like and not like here. The storyline was original with constant turns and surprises. I enjoyed the story, but I struggled to find a connection with either of the main characters. Beyond their reputations as knights, which we're reminded of constantly, it's hard to find much to like about these two. The hero clearly loved his young son, but took him with him when he went war. The heroine loved her father and siblings, but had minimal positive emotional connection to them.

I think the most frustrating thing about reading the book was trying to overlook the inner dialog of the H/h. The story, the action and interactions were those of adults (at least as much as you would expect from a romance novel), but their inner musings were those of a 13-year-old girl - for both of them! Beyond that, there were issues with timelines being inconsistent, important details that were ignored by the characters, emotions that were pointed out but never explained (a lot of time I couldn't understand why HE was mad or SHE was crying - again).

One theme that stood out was honor and loyalty. Both H and h wanted to remain loyal to their king, country and homes even as their attraction to their enemy became harder to ignore. Neither really had a sense of themselves except as knights in service to their country and they both struggled with this throughout the book. Until suddenly they didn't and they decided to live happily ever after.

I often wonder if an author ever wishes they could go back and rework earlier books. This is one that could be so much better if she did. I'm going to try another book by this author and see if my opinion changes about her work.
Profile Image for Mermarie.
461 reviews
April 9, 2012
Never had I read a heroine so bold and daring, that I immediately felt the inclination to fling daggers at any random bystander to appease the inner hoyden of every lass. :D

I understand the author's approach to balancing out her persona; the strong spirited warrioress, and to counter with an overly weepy lil' girl begging to be saved in some grandiose manner.

Notwithstanding, the book was exceptionally great. I've no qualms with its deliverance and give & take measure. One question; who did the bloated corpse belong to in the moat??!
Profile Image for Anna Markland.
Author 238 books252 followers
August 31, 2016
I love medieval romance, and this is the second time I've read the book-something I rarely do! There is lots of action and excitement that carries the reader from page to page. The author did a good job of portraying the hero, Bryce Princeton.
My only criticm would be that the numerous twists, turns, and complications are almost too much and I found myself wondering when the two protagonists would finally admit their love.
Profile Image for Engineer19.
17 reviews9 followers
September 18, 2013
one of my favorite Historical ever...strong heroine...
besotted, blindly possessive hero who will gonna shout "YOU'RE DAMN FUCKING MINE" to the heroine..
i love the plot of the story

this story leads me to purchase the authors other works...
Profile Image for Lori ◡̈.
1,154 reviews
June 17, 2017
I went into this book knowing it was way out of my comfort zone of fluffy, sweet romance. It had a plethora of war, sword fights, blood and guts, death, etc. And I was ok with it because I actually liked the hero and heroine and found myself looking forward to picking it back up to continue. The heroine was not my typical favorite, she was a warrior, independent, a leader... but I loved how she was written so you could see that she did indeed have feelings, and how she was hurting from her relationship with her father, how she was softening up and realizing that she could be feminine. The hero was a great alpha male that was a classical tough guy... I just didn't like that he had not one but two live-in mistresses (whores) residing at his castle. Like others have said, a few parts were completely unrealistic. Like how the heroine led her own army, how she favored her prisoner (the hero), how her brother Andres recommended that she get the hero out of her system.... how the hero was beaten up soooo many times and never really suffered from it that much.

With that being said, at about half-way thru the book, after many times of them each being prisoner to the other, multiple people constantly interfering to let the hero and heroine be together for 2 minutes, and war battles taking place every 5 minutes, I skimmed alllll the way to the last chapter, read it (and loved it) and felt completely satisfied that I was "finished' with the book :)
Profile Image for Chandra.
371 reviews24 followers
March 15, 2012
AUTHOR: Laurel takes you from the battle-field to a castle in France to the battle-field to England. Major events in each location. Awesome until she seemed to have stalled in England. Some situations were very vague. BUT !!!! Good book so R E A D O N

SETTING: Hundred Years' War. King Charles VI of France, 1410. King Henry of England, 1414
CENTRAL FEMALE CHARACTER: She is known as the Angel of Death and the champion of France.
CENTRAL MALE CHARACTER: He is known as the Prince of Darkness and the champion of England.
Nope, they are not paranormal central characters.

(4 out of 5) Stars. Elements of a Romance Book TEST =
2 central characters, 1 male, 1 female.......................YES;
One or both of the main characters are in peril.......YES; pitted against each other
They work together to resolve the situation......NOPE; they are enemies
Some amount of conflict and resistance in working together.....YES
Villain?.............……......YES; warring sides of France and England

PASSION SCALE: This book gets (2) ASTERISK because they do a whole bunch of "wanting to touch each other" and some "touching each other" but you can relax if you can handle a "little": Breasts, Manhood, Groan and Thrusting. Most of the passion is the wanting rather than the thrusting.
* NOT very descriptive and requires imagination
** WILL make you wiggle a little)
*** WISH it was me;
**** OH BODY, whew;
***** EROTICA and well over the top

FAVORITE PART: Her treatment of the peasants.

LEAST FAVORITE PART: Incomplete characterization of Lucien. What happened to him after the battle and yyyy? How did he get to England and yyyy? Why was he detained the way he was in England and yyyy? What was he state of mind and yyyyy? Vague
and
Who, in fact, was the "Wolf Pack". Are we talking paranormal here. Vague.
and
Come on.....lets bring in Count Dumas and make him a really bad guy. Interaction directly with him was nil.

YOU WILL LIKE THIS BOOK IF YOU LIKE: Historical romance, 15th century, Hundred Years' War, Knights, Romance, a kick butt female
Profile Image for Readallnight.
132 reviews
April 9, 2014
3.5

Mmmm... I definitely liked this book. It was out of mine comfort zone. It's one of the first books I've read that was set in war. I think a few things that stopped me from giving this book 4 stars was that it had too much death, I know it's suppose to but I just couldn't deal with it! Also I didn't like how Bryce had kept 2 whores. And again I know it was appropriate for the context....

But this book was good! I liked ryen, she was smart and independent. The plot was interesting as well.

GIVE THIS BOOK A GO!
Profile Image for Penney.
194 reviews12 followers
October 3, 2011
Great premise, but not so good execution. I was really looking forward to a strong kick-ass heroine but she seemed to forget that was what she was. Most of of the time she was whiney and indecisive. This was a 2.5/5 star rating for me but I'll round up for the effort.
5 reviews1 follower
June 14, 2011
I loved this book! It was really a page turner. I loved the heroine, Ryen and the hero, Bryce. They were enemies who overcame the odds and fell in love. Wonderful medieval romance!
Profile Image for Kaarinedm.
157 reviews13 followers
November 4, 2011
One of my favorite historial romances of all time. Read over and over (years ago)
Profile Image for Wendy.
10 reviews14 followers
January 9, 2012
I never could get into the story. It got to the point where I didn't think it was ever going to end. It had some okay parts. But all in all ... not a story for me.
Profile Image for ⚡Emily⚡.
191 reviews7 followers
May 21, 2023
Re-read for a second time.

I love this book - it's a really good enemies to lovers historical romance. The H is an English knight and the h is a French knight and they come together in war and end up falling in love - what's not to like?? The H is so possessive as well and I love that shit. He is a bit of a dick in some parts of this book though, just a warning to you all. I loves me a bastard though.

The reason I can't give it 5 stars is it takes too long for the H and h to FINALLY be together - so much stuff stood in their way and it was so annoying. I don't just mean the fact that they are on opposing sides of a war as that is an understandable issue but the petty stuff, and misunderstandings galore, made it so annoying - I just wanted them to get together already. I think it took until around the 75% mark and even after that there was some conflict.

I wanted to see more of Ryen being a badass, she is the Angel of Death after all, and not some love sick puppy who can't stop thinking about Bryce's abs.

I wanted more of an epilogue as well. I wanted to see them in their marriage, kids etc.

I loved Ryen and Bryce's sweet moments though - he said some really lovely things to her that made me swoon. 'My Angel'.

On a final note, the use of the words 'creamy thighs' makes me want to spew a little bit.
Profile Image for Jena .
2,313 reviews2 followers
June 4, 2018
Can't continue with this book.... The story is incredibly unrealistic- completely unbelievable, and there wasn't enough character development at the beginning of the book to make it remotely plausible. It's fiction I know, but give me a break. This book makes no sense.

Why is the heroine the best fighter? Why are men following her? Wish all of these questions were shown.

Apparently, she's even better at swordplay than the hero, constantly saving him, which just made the alpha hero seem like a wimp and the biggest fool that ever lived. The hero is the most feared knight and he gets defeated by tiny women... *eye roll*

Try Kingdom of Dreams from Judith McNaught for a fantastic medieval instead.

This book is going on my Did Not Finish shelf.
Profile Image for L.W..
Author 1 book4 followers
May 12, 2014
Great battles on and off the battle field. Well developed characters as well as a good story. It was hard to put down, I kept looking for that happy ending and then everything unraveled. This was a complete surprise as to how well defined and developed everything was. I will have to check out more of this authors works
128 reviews2 followers
May 17, 2013
I loved the characters. It was a bit too long but maybe because I couldn't stop reading it!
152 reviews
December 28, 2015
A beautiful story of love overcoming tremendous odds. Some very brutal scenes, but also some very emotional, heart-wrenching scenes.
Profile Image for rebecca.
988 reviews8 followers
February 7, 2015
Best book ever

I have read most of the author s books. I think this is my favorite. Love and hate relationship. Must read
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