Can Daria face her trauma and fear to save a kingdom and perhaps her heart too….?
The Mystery Princess is a Young Adult retelling of Cinderella by Australian author Melanie Cellier, This is the second book of Back to The Four Kingdoms, even though these books can be read as standalone, for this one especially I would strongly recommend reading the 1st book of this series, and this book has characters from the two prequel series’ The Four Kingdoms series and The Beyond the Four Kingdoms series, in fact our heroine was introduced in the latter, so for the best experience, I recommend reading in order.
Daria has spent her whole life caring for others. So when she’s rescued by traveling merchants while fleeing for her life, she’s more than happy to work for them in return for her safety.
But danger follows her, as does Prince Percy. Daria thought she’d left the complications of balls and royalty behind her, but she can’t hide as a servant forever–not when whole kingdoms are in peril. As the threat grows, so do the risks Daria is willing to take. But even as she puts herself in danger, Daria doubts she could ever be enough–for the people who need saving or the prince himself.
In this reimagining of the classic fairy tale, Cinderella, the overworked orphan must face dangers, doubts, and traitors before she can hope to triumph in a ballroom.
If you enjoy clean romance, adventure, and intrigue, then try the books in the Return to the Four Kingdoms series now! These interconnected fairy tale retellings each feature a different heroine who finds herself friendless in a strange land and who must fight to save her new home and win her happily ever after.
The plot was amazing, truly amazing, the heroine takes charge a lot and actively works to solve the problem, even though it directly doesn’t threaten her, but as it was quite visible in the Dream of Ebony and White, Daria is as kind as they come, and it was good and smooth, the only thing that is keeping this book from being a 5 star for me is the romance.
As a retelling I loved it, in this, the stepmother and stepsister aren’t evil, but just very flawed and human, and that doesn’t mean that they aren’t called out for their mistakes, I think Melanie did well on the aspect of the character, which we will dive into now.
Daria’s character was quite layered, from previous books I had known that she didn’t really have a childhood, and had to learn responsibility very early, nevertheless, she was an amazing mother hen even to people who were older than her. Obviously, she had a lot of trauma, she had grown to believe that she had to earn people’s love, for someone to care about her, she needed to be of some use to them, which isn’t true, love is unconditional, so she had to work through that, she had to learn to face her fears, she was very hard-working, and witty, all in all, I loved her, she had an amazing arc.
Now the stepfamily, annoyed me a lot, I know they are flawed and have their trauma, but I felt angry on Daria’s behalf, it is something that happens in the real world as well good people are often taken for granted, the sister was seriously self-absorbed, and as for the mother there was one point when I felt so furious, the mother is very- very overprotective due to reasons known to people who have read the book 😉. But, they have good character arcs as well.
Percy, who is the younger brother of Gabe, and we first met him in the 1st book of this series, I liked him, and he had substance. I particularly liked that he was shown to be vulnerable. He and Daria even had an on-page heart-to-heart, and loved his dynamic with Arvin, yes the sassy and very superior horse, who was introduced in the first book.
But the romance, personally didn’t put a sizable impression on me, there just weren’t butterflies induced, they had banter and a natural progression, attraction, friendship, and love…oh wait I forgot heartbreak is somewhere in the middle, but when all is said and done, this could just be a me thing since what is butterfly inducing may vary from person to person.
The theme is facing fear, which is similar to the theme of one of the previous books in Melanie’s universe The Captive of Wind and Feather, but it was different at the same time, In Addie’s case the book’s heroine had been betrayed in the worst ways possible and that made it difficult for her to open her heart to somebody and trust people, Daria’s issues are somewhat less obvious (I’m not sure if that’s the right word), she too was afraid to trust people but her reasons were different, she had been a caregiver to the people she loved and believed that for her to have love or deserve it she needs to be useful to the person.
But Daria wasn’t the only person the book theme was in play with, It was connected to Percy, to the stepmother and a character from the first series, the Lanovarian princess Clarisse who has many brothers and sisters who have their own stories, but she was introduced in The Princess Fugitive, we get to know her story too.
It has kissing and some violence so a 13+ rating, the book is divided into three parts, and has a prologue and an amazing epilogue, that the full series readers would love.
Overall it was a very good read, with a good plot, a strong heroine, and good characters, could have been better in the romance aspect according to me, so it gets 4 stars.
Buh bye!
Yours,
A Fellow Bookworm.
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