I love Meg Cabot, so I will read just about anything of her's. This book was a fun little romp and a very quick read. Great for a lazy Saturday or a rainy afternoon...not literature by any stretch of the imagination, but worth the time. ( )

Reviewed by Natalie Tsang for TeensReadToo.com

Girls will laugh and swoon with RANSOM MY HEART. Princess Mia Thermopolis, heroine of Meg Cabot's THE PRINCESS DIARIES, pens a fun, flirty debut novel that's spiced with the occasional mishap.

Finnula Crais is out to catch a rich man. Why has Fair Finn switched from hunting game to hunting men? To help out her beloved sister, of course!

The family beauty, Mellana, has spent her entire dowry and needs Finn to capture and ransom some poor unsuspecting fool so she can marry the man of her dreams. As luck would have it, her prey is none other than the new local lord, Hugo Fitzstephen, a seasoned knight and womanizer who has just returned from the Crusades.

Inevitably, things begin to heat up as Finn uses herself as bait to lure Hugo. Her hostage is all too happy to find himself the center of attention of such a determined huntress.

I blushed and giggled my way through their mutual and often awkward physical attraction as it blossomed into a romantic but still comedic courtship. I really liked that there were quite a few rocks and some hard slogging to get to true love. There were moments when I envied Finn, but there were also times when I was so glad that I was not in her shoes.

While RANSOM MY HEART has its share of historical romance tropes - scheming teenage girls, corrupt bailiffs, mistaken identity, and disastrous miscommunication - readers will find these as familiar landmarks rather than repetitive scenery. Meg Cabot seems to have a lot of fun playing with our expectations and then subverting them.

Finn may be a seventeen-year-old tomboy, but even when head-over-heels in love, she knows better than to compromise herself or her family over some guy. Likewise, it's super-refreshing to have a hero and heroine who have lives and dreams outside of each other.

Readers, beware! There is a high chance of silly smiles, laugh-out-loud moments, and holding your breath as you frantically turn the pages. Five Stars! ( )

The premise of this book is pretty entertaining, even before you get to the story. The book is written by Mia Thermopolis, the main character of Cabot’s Princess Diaries books. Meg Cabot is just helping her write. A chapter from one of the Princess Diaries books is included at the back, explaining a bit about why Mia is writing.

Therefore, Meg Cabot’s trademark humorous style is toned down quite a bit in this novel, though smile-worthy scenes are found throughout. The main characters are extremely likeable and fun to adventure with. This is a romance novel, yes, but it’s a romance novel with an actual plot and character development! (Of which I’m sure there are many, I’m just addressing comments people made to me when I told them what I was reading.) Reading a romance novel is definitely off the beaten track for me, but I really enjoyed this story.

So, overall, I recommend this book! It’s fun, sexy and definitely worth a read. ( )

I am neither a historical fiction reader, nor a romance reader. The sole reason I wanted to read this book was because of the fact that it was written by the great Meg Cabot. Cabot has written young adult historical romances (Nicola and the Viscount, Victoria and the Rogue) and I was not a fan of those. For the most part, I was completely enchanted by Finnula's story. It's great to see a romance novel that breaks romance novel stereotypes of weak, helpless women waiting for strong burly men to do everything for them. Things like this (and minor anachronisms) remind the reader that this is theoretically being written by a girl in her senior year of high school. It's a fun read, though not entirely suitable for young adults (but you just know Princess Diaries fans are going to ignore this fact and read it anyways). Everything's great until the end approaches. The wedding is skipped over, and then a weird storyline begins. I honestly believe the wedding should have been an ending with an elaborate wedding scene, and then anything after that could have served as either an epilogue or as a sequel. It felt as though it were two entirely different books, and read pretty awkwardly. There's no main idea throughout the entire book, it's two different ones (the first being 'falling in love', the second 'death threats, oh no!').

Rating: 4/5 ( )

When her sister Mellana tearfully needs money for her dowry, the feisty and independent Finnula has no choice but to kidnap a rich man and hold him for ransom to get the money. She finds Sir Hugh Fitzwilliam, a knight just returning from the Holy Wars, and makes him her hostage. Perfect.

However, her hostage is hiding a few secrets. For one, his real name is Lord Hugo Fitzstephen, and he is the heir to Stephensgate Manor, the town where Finnula resides as the miller's sister. Hugo has had his fair share of women, but not capture his attention so much as the Fair Finn, whose acerbic manner and complete unawareness of her beauty make him practically unable to keep his hands off her.

There are more than a few reasons why Finnula wants nothing to do with the future Earl of Stephensgate, though, because of a disturbing past that may threaten to destroy everyone's present and future happiness if someone doesn't do something about it...

If you want a light, frothy, and fun historical romance, look no further than RANSOM MY HEART. I'm not a big romance novel reader, but this book completely won me over with the strong of the attraction between Finnula and Hugo. They are arresting and appealing, if somewhat stereotypical, characters--Finnula is the willful free spirit, Hugo the dangerously sexy royalty guy. However, that didn't bother me much at all, simply because their story was so fun to read.

This novel is actually the senior project of Mia Thermopolis (from The Princess Diaries), and so of course there are some aspects of it that are rather cliche: the romance-y terms, the faux-Olde English speech. Additionally, the second half of the novel drags a bit, and the ending felt a bit too well wrapped up. Overall, however, RANSOM MY HEART is a truly enjoyable and fun romantic romp, and it's going to stay on my bookshelf when I need a lighthearted and sexy escapism read. ( )