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‘We need the literature of other countries to expand our
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diminished, we are starved’
(The Times, Magnus Linklater 29/06/05)
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Princess Plot (The)
by Kirsten Boie
Age Range: 12+
Jenna is an ordinary teenager with the usual teenage angst, worrying about her weight, how she looks and how much homework she has to do. When auditions take place in her home town for a film about a princess, her best friend Bea persuades her to do an audition. Much to Jenna’s surprise, she is chosen over her more talented friends. Even her strict, over-protective mother seems to agree when Jenna is offered the chance to go to the small, kingdom of Scandia to meet the director.
However, it doesn’t take Jenna long to discover that things are not what they seem. She turns out to be the splitting image of the real Malena, Princess of Scandia, even if she does have to wear a blond wig and blue contact lenses! Soon, she discovers that she is part of a dastardly plot to take complete control of the government and scupper the previous king’s plans to give equal rights to both the North and South Scandians.
This is a story with many twists and turns. Kersten Boie does an excellent job of keeping the suspense right up until the end of the book. Jenna is a likeable heroine, along with Melena and Jonas her two friends.
To begin with there were elements of the ‘Princess Diaries’ – an every-day-girl who finds out that she really is a princess of a small European kingdom – but it quite quickly differs to become a compelling modern-day fantasy with very contemporary ingredients: including a despot dictatorship determined to keep Scandia as a closed society where no one can have contact with the outside world; deep political unrest between the North and the South of the kingdom and a looming civil war that includes terrorist attacks. There may be some predictability at times in the plot but this doesn’t detract from a page-turning novel that will appeal to all fantasy lovers.