The tone is everything. A gritty, grimdark pirate tale might have a romance that's equally harsh and fraught—more about desperate alliances and betrayals. A lighter, more rollicking adventure will have a swoonier, more banter-filled romance. The blend has to match the overall feel. You can't have a comedy-of-errors romance paired with a brutally realistic depiction of naval warfare. The genres need to agree on the emotional rules of the world they're building together. When they do, it's magic.
The antagonist's perspective defines the tropes too. The villain's fatal flaw is underestimating her, which is the 'underestimation leads to downfall' trope. They see the 'princess' and not the 'pirate'. The story is structured around the villain making a series of incorrect assumptions that the heroine exploits. Another trope is 'the villain's own allies turn on them' after seeing the princess's worth or mercy. The final confrontation is rarely just a sword fight; it's a battle of wits where she uses her dual upbringing to outmaneuver an opponent who only understands one way of life.
This might be an odd take, but the main conflict feels environmental. The sea itself is the antagonist—unpredictable, monstrous, and endlessly challenging. The plot is a survival epic where human rivals are secondary to navigating cursed waters, surviving killer storms, and finding safe harbor. Her royal background means she's utterly unprepared for this raw, elemental struggle, and her growth is about learning to read the waves and wind as her new language. The title's 'mess with' could mean defying the ocean's wrath.
The structure is pretty classic: inciting incident, rising action on the high seas, a big confrontation, resolution. So the 'order' is following that classic three-act structure within the one book. You won't find flashbacks presented out of sequence or anything complex. It's a fun, straightforward adventure with a side of romance.
Not that I've found, and I've looked. It's categorized as a standalone romantic fantasy adventure on Goodreads and Amazon. The plot is pretty self-contained, which I actually appreciated. Not every story needs to be a doorstopper series.
If you're craving more of that 'feisty royal on a ship' vibe, there are other books in the genre that scratch a similar itch. But for this specific title, the journey begins and ends right there between those covers.