Fortune's Fool

Lackey's ornate, meandering third installment in her Five Hundred Kingdoms romantic saga (after 2006's One Good Knight ) heralds the fair Princess Ekaterina, seventh daughter of the Sea King, whose magic enables her to surface from the watery deep and live on land as well. When her father dispatches her on a spying mission to the Drylands, she falls in love with the land-born seventh son of the king of Led Belarus, Prince Sasha Pieterovich, a Songweaver who calls on magic through music. But their steamy courtship is soon interrupted by an evil Jinn, who captures Katya and confines her to his castle along with dozens of other magically gifted females, whose powers he saps to enrich his own. But stealing clever Katya is a big mistake for the Jinn, as it leads to a pyrotechnic showdown—dragons and all—before the gifted couple continue on their path to wedded bliss. (Mar.)