Princess Seraphine of Aurélia is Missing!

After slipping past her royal guards in Venice, the sheltered but rebellious princess finally has what she’s always wanted: freedom.  Just for one night.

Facing a loveless political marriage, Seraphine longs to experience life and passion before her future is decided for her.  She’s terrified she’ll die a virgin.  But freedom proves far more dangerous than she ever imagined.

When she stows away aboard a luxury sailing yacht, she’s discovered by its owner: Capitán Dante.  A former French Foreign Legion soldier turned yacht captain, Dante is as ruthless as he is devastatingly handsome. He has no interest in rescuing runaway princesses. Yet when armed guards descend on the marina searching for Seraphine, he finds himself doing exactly that.

One stolen kiss to fool her pursuers changes everything. What started as a kiss to deceive awakens desires neither can ignore.  Reluctantly, Dante agrees to take Seraphine to France to reunite with her mother. They make port in Corsica along the way. It’s where Dante was based while serving in the French Foreign Legion and where Seraphine begins to uncover what drove him to turn his back on the world.

Dante doesn’t do romance. He doesn’t do tenderness. And when Seraphine tests the limits of his patience, she discovers he doesn’t tolerate disobedience on his tightly run ship and has no qualms about reining her in.  Yet the spirited princess brings out long-buried feelings in Dante and breaches the citadel he’s built around his heart.

Seraphine sees the man beneath the scars and defenses. After her first tastes of passion, walking away is no longer so easy.  Their attraction burns hotter with every nautical mile. It’s no longer freedom Seraphine craves. It’s her Capitán.

But as France draws closer, duty and desire collide. Seraphine must choose: the royal life she was born to or the forbidden man she never expected to love.

Titles in the Hot Mediterranean Nights series include:  Capitán Dante and the Runaway Princess ~

This story may contain language, violence, and/or sexual situations intended for an adult 18+ audience.

Title:  Capitán Dante and the Runaway Princess
Series:  Hot Mediterranean Nights #1
Author:  Carol Marinelli
Published:  August 6, 2026
My Rating:  4.5 stars

Capitán Dante and the Runaway Princess begins the Hot Mediterranean Nights series with one runaway princess, desperate for answers, and one former French Foreign Legionnaire, now captain of his own sailing yacht, with an air of mystery and heartache surrounding him.  Each is fighting their own inner demons, and each seeks answers that can only be found with the other… if they are willing to take the risks involved.

Anything you’d really “need” to know before picking up this story can be found in the cover description.  Yet there is so much that awaits you within Seraphine and Dante’s story.  At first, it was a bit hard to connect with Seraphine.  After all, a woman who doesn’t even know how to take off her own earring was difficult to take seriously.  Yet.  She never presents herself as a spoiled, bratty princess… she is pampered beyond belief by her circumstances, yes.  And it took only a short time to realize that she was attempting to escape that pampered, sheltered life to find answers to personal questions, and perhaps to actually experience life outside the protective glass bubble she’d been raised in.  It’s hard to know how to live life when you have never actually been allowed to do even the smallest thing for yourself and learn to be self-sufficient.  Some of the answers she is looking for will bring her freedom; others will bring heartache.  How she deals with both will show the world (and her father, the king) the woman she is becoming.

Dante is a wounded man, bound tight by past heartbreak.  He certainly never expected Seraphine to affect his heart the way she did.  In many ways, they each gave to the other exactly what was needed, even if neither realized that at first.

I enjoyed Capitán Dante and the Runaway Princess so much.  It’s well-written, emotional, steamy, filled with unexpected tensions, Seraphine’s shenanigans, and Dante’s solid steadiness.  It was an enjoyable reading experience, and I look forward to the next book in this series.  If that sounds like your kind of romance, then you’d love this one.

I read this title through my Kindle Unlimited subscription.  I’m grateful to authors who put their books in KU; my book budget only goes so far, and I appreciate the ability to devour books I might not otherwise have read.

This title is available on Amazon