| $@%&! level: None “Bedroom” level: None Violence level: None Back Cover: “Lost and hungry, wet and sneezing, Lorelei stumbles upon an unknown castle. She is admitted, and finds herself in the middle of the Princess Test. King Humphrey and Queen Hermione have devised this test to find a real princess for their son, Prince Nicholas. But the prince doesn't care about real princesses or imposters. He just wants to marry the maiden he loves. Can Lorelei pass the test? Can she win the prince's heart?” |
However, in any story like this, you have to have at least one sensible character to point out how ridiculous it all is. In this case, it's the prince, arguably the only rational person in the entire royal family. The king spends half of his mental energy thinking up synonyms for ordinary words, and then using both so he can sound that much more learned and pompous. Both the king and queen are exceptionally picky eaters, too. Now, Lorelei is a picky eater, but that's because she has food allergies. The royal couple apparently do it just because they can. It's a wonder they haven't starved to death yet. And if they hadn't lucked onto a girl who was afflicted with food allergies, hay fever, cripplingly sensitive skin, and a good eye for colors, their obsession with finding a “real” princess might have meant their son would never get married and thus would end the line of kings. I agree with Prince Nicholas, of course—what do any of these things have to do with fitness to help run a country or bear royal heirs? If anything, I would worry she might pass those afflictions on to future generations. (On that note, I've sometimes suspected that this story stems from the hemophilia that ran rampant in the royal families of Europe.) And Nicholas was just lucky enough to fall for a girl who would appease his parents' strange obsessions and who was willing to lie about being a princess and who was sweet and cheerful and generally lovable in spite of her difficulties. I can't imagine what he might have done if he'd turned out to be naturally attracted to warrior princess types.