The False Princess
False Princess, I’ll tumble for ya. There are WIZARDS and CONSPIRACIES, and ROYALTY, and WUV TRUE WUV. The False Princess by Eilis O’Neal is a bang-up debut novel. If you enjoyed The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale and that style of writing, friend, you’ll LOVE this book. Plot in a nutshell? So Nalia is heir to the Thorvaldian throne, princess of the kingdom, best friends with jokester Kiernan, life is good. Then she is summoned by her parents and finds out that she isn’t the real princess. Her name isn’t even Nalia, it’s Sinda. She was raised as a false princess to protect the REAL princess from some oracle-predicted prophecy. Kicked out of the castle, she lives as a peasant until she discovers that perhaps there are still more secrets to be uncovered in Thorvald.
There are plenty of things to enjoy in The False Princess including boy next door love. Y’all I am so sick of those books where the love is instant or at first site. And, I feel like in these non-contemp books, that’s quite a common trope. In THE FALSE PRINCESS, it’s a nice change. It’s nice to see a book that says yes, it’s cool to be friends first then develop into something more.
I was a fan of the fairy-tale formality. Fairy tales are always easy to slip into because they sound like something you’ve heard before as a kid. I mean, I’m not sure if The False Princess is based on a legit fairly tale, but it is told with the same ease as one.
Plus, while Sinda isn’t physically strong, she still kicks ass. She’s got the intellectual-strong, courage, gumption thing going on and I can totally respect that in a character. Also, this book sort of addresses classism, perhaps not on purpose but I still saw it. You’ve got the royalty in their ivory tower and peasants. Now, the royals have no concept of reality when it comes to how the poor live, and that’s addressed in the book and I think that is awesome.
I was quite surprised by how quick of a read The False Princess was and how easily I fell into the story. For me, The False Princess resulted in a fist pump of joy for Sinda’s character arc.
Disclosure: Received for review.
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April (Books&Wine) – who has written 1074 posts on Good Books And Good Wine.
April is 24 years old. She is an educator. In her free time she can be found reading, working out, or eating junk food. She often wears her sunglasses at night.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
a princess bride reference. love it. the false princess sounds like a great book
Wizards AND royalty? FULL OF WIN. I have seen this book around the blogosphere and will definitely need to pick up a copy. Loved your review!
Seeing The Princess Bride quoted definitely gets me intrigued but this book sounds awesome enough on it’s own! Can’t wait to read it!
Man, you make me want this book so badly and I must say that cover is so not cool but oh gosh I don’t even care because it looks oh so pretty! and it has WIZARDS? I want it!
I LOVED The False Princess; I agree with errthing you said.
I wasn’t in love with the writing of this one, but the plot was so awesome and I loved Kiernan so I can totally overlook it. I also love the cover. I need to get my own copy!
Sounds like an excellent book! I’ll be watching for this one! Great review!!
And, who doesn’t love The Princess Bride?!
You compared it to The Goose Girl and sold me!
I’m really looking forward to this one! It sounds like just my cup of tea.