Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of Her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection, in Four Parts » (Unabridged)

Catherine Murdock is the author of Dairy Queen, its sequel The Off Season, and the forthcoming Front and Center. She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband, two children, and several cats, and regrets to report that she has never flown a broom, though not for lack of effort. Princess Ben is her first fairy tale.

Benevolence is not your typical princess and Princess Ben is certainly not your typical fairy tale. With her parents lost to unknown assassins, Princess Ben ends up under the thumb of the conniving Queen Sophia, who is intent on marrying her off to the first available "specimen of imbecilic manhood." Starved and miserable, locked in the castle's highest tower, Ben stumbles upon a mysterious enchanted room. So begins her secret education in the magical arts: mastering an obstinate flying broomstick, furtively emptying the castle pantries, setting her hair on fire... But Ben's private adventures are soon overwhelmed by a mortal threat facing the castle and indeed the entire country. Can Princess Ben save her kingdom from annihilation and herself from permanent enslavement?

Publishers Weekly

Murdock (Dairy Queen) reworks now standard elements of the modern fairy tale-reluctant princess, haughty prince, evil queen, portentous prophesies-for this frothy coming-of-age story. Princess Ben (short for Benevolence) is effectively orphaned after assassins kill her uncle the king and her mother, and her father disappears. Now heiress to Montagne's throne, Ben is forced into the tutelage of her aunt, Queen Sophia, with a regimen of dance lessons, embroidery and dieting, all in order to be married off to Florian, crown prince of menacing Drachensbett. After their umpteenth clash, the queen locks Ben in a tower, where Ben discovers a hidden portal, a wizarding room and a book of spells. Through her forays in magic, Ben learns that if Drachensbett's leaders can't marry their way into controlling Montagne, they will take it by force, and she will have to use her smarts to save her country. There's no new ground broken-the sardonic, witty repartee between Ben and Florian would fit right into a Shrek sequel-but the story (think poor man's Gail Carson Levine) is thoroughly entertaining. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)

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