Tatiana, now Tanya, was brought up without affection and has grown into a fiercely independent girl who works hard and dreams of the day she will inherit the tavern. The baroness who was to care for her died shortly after their arrival in America leaving her to be raised in a rough Southern town by a greedy tavern owner who treats Tatiana like a slave. Of course, once he finds Tatiana, she’s not quite the image of a Cardinian lady. But he cannot refuse his father’s dying wish so he sets off to fetch his bride with a band of aristocratic buddies. The guy thinks he’s repulsive to women, particularly pretty women, and he isn’t anxious to set himself up for rejection by Tatiana whose mother was a legendary beauty. Lindsey has also saddled him with facial scars, the result of a wolf attack in his youth. Enter Prince Stefan Barany, a fully stocked alpha complete with tortured soul, a violent temper, and glowing gold eyes. Years later, after the death of the last Stomboloff, the ailing King sends his son to bring Tatiana home. But not before he insures that the crown will remain in the Janacek family by contracting her in marriage to his young son. To protect the last Janacek, the infant Tatiana, he spirits her away to America and out of the Stomboloffs’ reach. When the feud has wiped out most of the Janacek line, a nobleman loyal to the royal family assumes the throne. It’s an enjoyable (if slightly silly) indulgence since it allows Lindsey to create the dramatic backstory of a blood feud between two aristocratic clans: the Janaceks and the Stomboloffs.
Cardinia is pure invention, a vaguely Eastern European figment of the author’s imagination. Cardinia? Don’t spend too much time trying to find it on a map.
The princess in question is Tatiana Janacek, the sole surviving member of the Janacek clan and heir to the Cardinian throne. Johanna Lindsey’s Once A Princess is old-fashioned, fairy tale fun.
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