The False Princess by Eilis O’Neal
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Book Source: Checked out from my public library
I was a good, quiet, and rule-following girl. The perfect princess, if not for my clumsiness and sometimes painful shyness.
Just after her sixteenth birthday, the Princess Nalia is summoned to meet with her parents. What they tell her could not have come as more of a shock. She is not their daughter, not the Princess. She is a commoner, brought to court as a baby to stand in for the real Nalia, in an attempt to keep the royal heir safe from a prophecy that she would die before the age of sixteen. Now, the real Princess is coming home, and her stand-in will be sent to her only living relative – a previously unknown aunt in a small village – and expected to make a new life for herself. But it is not long before Sinda (as she is now known) discovers that there is much more going on than the King and Queen know, and it just might fall to her save the kingdom itself.
There is a little bit of everything in this debut novel: fantasy, mystery, romance. O’Neal brings the elements together with a master’s touch. The plot is intricate, yet it avoids getting muddled. Characters are developed so that they show both strength and weakness, good and bad. In flowing prose, O’Neal creates a world that pulls the reader in and refuses to let go until the last page. Highly recommended.