Joey had reasons. They were threefold.

Fantasy Romance is quickly becoming one of my favorite genres. Here’s why:

1. You get to live in an entirely made up world for a while, full of fairies, magic, animals who can communicate with humans, AND DID I MENTION MAGIC.
2. Sometimes you want the people in those stories to make out and give you swoony feelings.

That’s it. Those are my reasons. They are simple, yes (not even threefold!) but feelings don’t have to be complicated all the time.

Anyway, The Sea King is the second in the Weathermages of Mystral (I know, right?) series, the first being The Winter King, which you should probably read first if you’re going to read this one. I don’t care, though. It’s your decision. Sometimes, when you’re ready to read these romance-y books, the library has every book in the series except the first one. And most of the time, it’s OK to read them out of order, because it’s not rocket science, you’re going to catch up to what’s going on. I’d say that’s the case here, but you should still probably read the first one before you pick this one up. OK? Just trust me.

Anyway anyway, all of these books are The Something King, but the focus is way more on the ladies and their complicated lives and feelings. Nothing again the Something Kings, but the ladies are more interesting. The Something Kings are just there to be Strong and Dreamy and Protective and In Love With a Complicated Woman Even Though One or Both of Them are Not Ready to Address Said Complicated Feelings.

(I said feelings about these books don’t have to be complicated. Feelings IN these books? Almost always complicated.)

Anyway thrice, we’re introduced to the Seasons in the first novel: Spring, Autumn, and Summer, sisters of Khamsin (the heroine of the first one), and owners of super cool weather-related powers. Summer, the gentlest and sweetest of the sisters, at least by outward appearance, has a secret, strong power that she’s spent her entire life hiding, even from her sisters who know almost everything about her.

Dilys is a prince of the mer-people, basically. Don’t worry about it because it’s all very complicated and the point really is that women are in charge in their kingdom (queendom?) and they worship their women and it’s all very nice. He has been given the chance to woo one of the Seasons and the only one his advisors have ruled out for him is Summer.

You see where this is going. Dilys meets the Seasons and of course thinks they’re all intelligent, lively, and boneable, but he can’t stop thinking about Summer. Summer is afraid of her feelings for Dilys so spends most of the book alternating between being super mean to him and running away from him, or accidentally making out with him. You know how that goes.

While all this is going on, there’s a background mystery about a pirate who has been killing friends and countrymen of Dilys, and they have to figure out wtf is going on. WAIT UNTIL YOU FIND OUT. JUST WAIT.

Anyway, I like and will continue to read these novels despite them being pretty cheesy and the dialogue being VERY CHEESY. If you don’t mind cheese of the literary variety, or you just want to escape the world for a bit (and who wouldn’t?), check these out.