Princesses of the Midnight Ball 

By Jessica Day George

Reviewed by Elizabeth Mosolovich

            ​Far beneath in the Kingdom Under Stone, a desperate queen makes a deal with King Under Stone to end the war between her nation and their neighboring country. King Under Stone agrees and sends the queen away, wish granted. But such wishes come with a price, and as the queen gives birth to a total of twelve beautiful daughters, the King Under Stone dreams of a world upon which the sun shines, and schemes how to gain access to it.

            ​Eighteen years later, Rose, the eldest daughter of King Gregor and the late Queen Maude of Westfalen, and her eleven younger sisters are all forced to take on their mother's debt and dance every night in morose balls in the Kingdom Under Stone, paired with the cold and cruel half-human sons of King Under Stone. As the sisters go through their days incredibly fatigued and with tattered dance slippers, their father decides to get to the bottom of things and offers any prince who can solve the mystery of the dance slippers the hand of the princess of his choosing. But when the princes keep turning up dead, accusations of witchcraft abound and the sisters are threatened from all sides.

            ​Enter Galen, a former soldier finally returning home from war to stay with his aunt and uncle. Finding work in the palace gardens, he soon learns of the king's contest and, after meeting Princess Rose, he decides to try and help the sisters. Using a magic cloak he received from  an old woman he met on the road and, with some help from the kind and mysterious head gardener, Galen enters the strange and oppressive world of the Kingdom Under Stone. Armed with his courage, intelligence, knitting needles, and the princesses' own determination, Galen attempts to rescue the sisters and destroy the Kingdom Under Stone once and for all.

​            This was a magical book, told in the alternative voices of Rose and Galen. An exciting and beautiful retelling of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," Princesses of the Midnight Ball teems with adventure, romance, magic, helpful wizards and a villainous sorcerer, all set in a fictional version of Germany. It has a good pace and everything is easy to understand without being oversimplified. I highly recommend this for those who enjoy fantasy and adventure, and if you enjoy this, you will certainly enjoy its two sequels, Princess of Glass, based on "Cinderella", and Princess of the Silver Woods, a thrilling retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood."