I’m new to Josie Litton’s Akora series and, based on this first visit, I think I’ll be going back. I liked the characters – Akoran, English, and American – and found both the suspense and romantic aspects of the story quite satisfying. Okay, so maybe some of the Akoran stuff is a bit hard to swallow, but in this book at any rate, it’s not overwhelming and is easy enough to ignore considering the fast-moving plot and likable characters.

Niels Wolfson is an American spy on a mission to England to discover if Akoran Prince Andreas could be one of the men behind a brutal attack that left 59 crew members of an American ship bound for Akora dead. Since America in 1837 would hardly welcome the establishment of an English naval base on the island, the ship’s mission to determine if the base existed or not was a highly secret one.

Niels’s plan to insinuate himself in the Akoran royal family involves kidnapping Andreas’s cousin, Princess Amelia. When the Princess escapes – as Niels and his brother are confident she will do – he plans to “rescue” her and return her to the bosom of her family.

Though things don’t quite go off as Niels intended, the basic scheme succeeds, at least to the point that Amelia doesn’t recognize Niels as one of her captors and does, indeed, introduce her “hero” to her family. What isn’t a part of the plan, however, is the fact that the strong-willed Amelia, a woman who has rejected countless suitors, is powerfully drawn to the handsome and mysterious American. Niels, as well, is intrigued by Amelia and, considering his hidden agenda, it’s not surprising that he doesn’t precisely welcome the attraction that both of them so clearly feel.

But, with such momentous matters pending, the obstacles facing Niels and Amelia are formidable – especially in the form of a mysterious man who will stop at nothing to destroy any developing Akoran-American ties. Clearly, before maters can be resolved between them, the truth behind the attack must be revealed and the true villain brought to justice.

What worked for me here was the author’s straight-forward telling of an intriguing story and her unwillingness to fall into plot contrivances that a lesser writer might have relied upon. Though there are secrets – big ones – between them, Niels and Amelia, actually do talk to each other when they need to. And, though Amelia is decidedly sexually adventurous for a woman of her time, I’m willing to buy into the fact that, heck, maybe Akoran women looked at those kind of things a bit differently.

Though the paranormal aspects of the story are slim – Amelia is psychically gifted – the fairy tale appeal of the island of Akora added a nice dimension to the story. But, frankly, all the diplomatic stuff (I mean, hey, why would Akora want relations only with England?) seemed a bit silly, but, since it wasn’t a huge part of the story, it didn’t interfere with my enjoyment of the book too much. A bigger problem was the snarling and almost cartoon-y villain, which leads me to this observation: Was Snidely Whiplash alive in 1837 and, if so, could he have been an English nobleman? I also pretty much glossed over what I’m quite certain were the-couples-from-the-previous-books stuff that we all know and love so well. But, again, it’s not heavy-handed and didn’t affect to any great degree the story’s ability to stand alone.

All in all, while Fountain of Dreams probably couldn’t survive too much close scrutiny, there’s enough here to deliver an entertaining read. Hey, it worked for me to the point that I definitely plan to stick around for the two sequels coming fast on the heels of this one.