The Princess Diaries meets Nancy Drew in this middle-grade novel about a New York foster kid who discovers she’s actually a long-lost princess―and must solve the mystery behind a threat to the crown.
PRINCESS PRIVATE EYE
by Evelyn Skye
Disney-Hyperion, May 2023
(via Kaplan/DeFiore Rights)
Twelve-year-old Gen Sun has bounced around New York’s foster care system ever since her parents died in a car crash ten years ago. No one seems to know anything about her birth family, and the only link she has to them is a baby blanket embroidered with her name.
But that’s all right. Gen is savvy and self-reliant, using her keen sense of justice and her ability to go unnoticed to solve mysteries in her neighborhood. She’s in the middle of solving one such mystery when her life changes forever: suited strangers reveal that Gen is actually the long-lost princess of a small, obscure country overseas.
In no time, Gen is whisked away to the kingdom of Raldonia. But becoming a princess overnight isn’t easy, and Gen’s American ways and no-nonsense demeanor don’t exactly endear her to the royal court. Before long, there are whispers that a legendary curse has been awoken by Gen’s sudden appearance.
And when plague-like events start befall the small country, Gen realizes she’ll have to crack her biggest case yet: catching the culprit out to dethrone her. And who knows? She just might find her place in the kingdom along the way.
Evelyn Skye brings a blend of wit and adventure to this middle grade series that asks: what truly makes a princess? And what makes a home?
Evelyn Skye is a New York Times bestselling author of novels for adults and young adults, including the forthcoming The Hundred Loves of Juliet and Three Kisses, One midnight. Her book The Crown’s Game was an Amazon Editor’s Pick, as well as an Amazon Best Book of 2016. Evelyn is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, and she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and daughter. PRINCESS PRIVATE EYE is her middle grade debut.

When a child visits the ocean with his little brother, he whispers to him, “The ocean has lots to say, if you listen.” Together, they hear wondrous things, like the rumble of pebbles tumbling and filling the beach with shiny gems, the bark of a seal playing peekaboo, and the whooshing of a shell murmuring messages.
When Penny Zale vanishes from the psychiatric hospital where she’s being held against her will, only her chopped-off braid and cryptic letters remain. If her friends Raven, Aarya, Dawn, and Elle have any chance of finding Penny, they must enter a world where money and power mean everything, and life is expendable.
In this queer graphic novel that’s equal parts romance, softball, and magical girl drama, Mickey Monsoon and Astra Maxima are best friends . . . and maybe more. That is, until Astra unceremoniously dumps Mickey to become a softball wunderkind at a private girl’s school in Switzerland. Years later, Mickey is the hotshot pitcher for the Belle City Broads, and their team is poised to sweep the league this season. But Micky is thrown off their game when Astra shows up to catch for the Gaiety Gals, the Broads’ fiercest rival. Astra is flirty, arrogant, and reckless on the field—everything the rule-abiding Mickey hates.
Indigo and her mother, once-famous artist Zoe Serra, have barely been scraping by since her mom’s breakdown. When a gallery offers Zoe a revival show for her unfinished blockbuster series,