Book Review: Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George

This was another one of those books I just happened upon at the public library. I am always interested in anything to do with princesses and the cover of this book was intriguing.

Princess of the Midnight Ball is a spin off of the Twelve Dancing Princesses fairy tale. I am not familiar with this fairy tale at all and apparently there are multiple variations. Anyways, in this young adult novel, twelve royal sisters are forced to dance for a horribly wicked king - King Under Stone who is no longer human. Every night, they must travel down an enchanted staircase into a world that is below ours. This world is full of darkness and strange creatures that resemble humans. King Under Stone plans for the princesses to marry his twelve sons and when their children have children, they will be able to once again move about in the real world and survive in sunlight. But Galen, a young soldier-turned-gardner shows up and has some tricks up his sleeve. Of course, good triumphs over evil.
I was pleased to discover that Jessica Day George is LDS. She attended BYU and now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. I thought she did a fantastic job with this novel. It was one of those books that I didn't want to put down. Her writing was impressive and the details she gave were fantastic. (She didn't go overboard though; it was not like Anne of Green Gables.) The story was obviously well thought out and this is a novel that is good for almost any age (I am 19 and loved it, and I passed it on to my sister who is 13 and I'm sure she'll enjoy it too). I would definitely put Princess of the Midnight Ball right next to Ella Enchanted and Goose Girl on my book shelf, no questions asked.