Sunday 8 May 2011

CBR9 Book 39: "Princess of Glass" by Jessica Day George

Publisher: Bloomsbury
Page count: 272 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: May 3rd, 2011
Date finished: May 4th, 2011

Princess of Glass is a sequel of possibly accompanying novel to Jessica Day George's Princess of the Midnight Ball. This review may therefore contain mild spoilers for that book, and anyone wanting to avoid said spoilers, should skip this review and read that book first.

Poppy, one of the twelve princesses from the country of Westfalin (Germany) has been sent to one of the neighbouring countries on a diplomatic exchange. She keeps being invited to balls, but due to a life-time of having to dance nightly due to a now broken curse, she prefers gambling at card tables instead. She is still having recurring nightmares about the years she and her sisters had to dance at the court of the evil King-under-Stone, and misses her family. She enjoys making new friends, though, especially her growing closeness with another visiting royal, Prince Christian of the Danelaw (unsurprisingly, Denmark), yet even he can't tempt her into actually dancing.

During one of the many royal balls arranged in Prince Christian's honour, a mysterious and beautiful young lady appears, dressed impeccably, covered in jewels and wearing delicate glass shoes, charming all the men. Yet she seems especially determined to monopolize as many dances as possible with Christian. Poppy recognizes the enigmatic Lady Ella as Ellen, the extremely clumsy maid in the household where she's staying. Ellen is the orphaned daughter of a local nobleman, forced into domestic service after her father lost all his money and had to sell off his estate. There is clearly magic involved with Ellen's sudden make-over, and Poppy suspects there is something sinister behind Ellen's godmother's determination that she marry Prince Christian. She will need to figure out what magical influence this so-called Fairy Godmother wields, and how to break it.

Princess of Glass is another delightful fairy tale retelling, this time a very interesting twist on Cinderella. Based on this, and her previous novels, I will absolutely be on the lookout for any others she writes, whether they're about other Westfalian princesses or something entirely different.

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