This was a confusing story. I picked it up because I was in the mood for a romance, and this book has such little romance in it I was pretty confused, because there's not really a plot. The book blurb says its about a changeling named Saffron who wants to stay in the fairy world and needs a patron, so he makes a dark deal with a mysterious high fey. Then love, murder mystery, vague plot things in the background. 

The plot is nonsensical. Saffron is part of a subjugated class: human changelings are servants to fey. For some reason this takes place at a magical college/university, but classes, education, and why this particular institution even exists is not only irrelevant to the plot, but seems irrelevant to the world. It basically is just an excuse for young hot people to be around each other? There's mention of a single professor, but that, again, doesn't have anything to do with the plot.

The way changelings are treated also makes no sense for this "romance" plot. Saffron is subjugated to slave-like conditions, extreme cruelty and indifference. At one point he is tortured and forcibly tattooed for... crying when his friend is murdered? It doesn't make sense but it doesn't have to. Cylvian is supposed to be the Crown Prince. Somehow he seems unaware of the cruelty all the changelings face, even though he himself treats Saffron with that same cruelty. Nor does he ever seem to care about the system that allows these horrors to exist in the first place. 

Even their first meeting. Cylvian tells Saffron his True Name, the name that can compel him to do anything, literally on a whim. His excuse is he is trying to see if this enchanted ring will remove the power from his True Name, and to do that he tells his True Name to a random stranger. There seems to be many flaws in this plan. Despite being the Crown Prince, despite being a powerful magic-user, despite being well-versed in mystical arts that are taboo to other high fey, Saffron still ends up being the one with the... I hesitate to call it "agency." Cylvian is trapped in a loveless engagement and is confined to his house, so despite being beaten multiple times, getting sick enough to warrant the equivalent of a hospital stay, doing hard labor every day, Saffron is still somehow the one who is meant to save Cylvian. In my humble opinion, Cylvian should save himself and Saffron should be more concerned with labor rights but that wouldn't be much of a romance novel. It still might be more of a romance novel than this version of Prince of the Sorrows though. 

Overall, I would say this book isn't fantasy enough to be a fantasy book and not romantic enough to be a romance book. The singular sex scene was extremely vague (maybe because Saffron is trans? I have a feeling that the author wanted to keep Saffron's specific plumbing vague, but it definitely felt like a barrier to overcome in the sex scene rather than a regular part of life).  Cylvian is inscrutable as a character. There is no real reason he goes from torturing Saffron to loving him, other that just proximity. And proximity is just fine for a regular romance novel, but this is a novel showcasing extreme class difference to the point of indentured servant x royal. You can't ignore that. 

Anyways, this was a confusing read. The plot was kind of all over the place, although I did enjoy Saffron's dramatique brief stint as a ghost. But it didn't deliver for me in either the fantasy or romance realms.