Where can a princess hide if her Ever After isn’t all that Happy? Bestselling author Alex London turns classic fairy tales on their heads in this fast-paced, funny fantasy about embracing change and taking control of your own story. For fans of The School for Good and Evil and the Chronicles of Never After series.
THE PRINCESS PROTECTION PROGRAM
by Alex London
HarperCollins / Greenwillow, February 2024
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)
Every fairy tale ends with its characters living happily ever after, right? A valiant prince quests long and hard to reach the castle where the sleeping princess lies. And with a kiss, he awakens her.
But what if the princess does NOT think a kiss from a stranger is a very pleasant way to wake up? Yuck!
When Rosamund flees her prince, a Door of Opportunity opens, and she steps through it to the Home Educational Academy (the HEA for short). Rosamund has found the Princess Protection Program, where fugitive fairy-tale princesses escape unwanted affections, untimely ends, and all the other perils of their stories.
But the longer Rosamund lives in the real world, the more questions she has. Does anyone ever graduate from the HEA? Why doesn’t anyone seem to remember the former students? Is the kindly fairy headmistress all she appears to be? Is anyone? And the most important question of all: Can Rosamund change her story?
Acclaimed and bestselling author Alex London weaves together several beloved fairy tales in this fast-paced, funny, and slyly subversive adventure about finding your place in the world.
Alex London is the author of over 25 books for children, teens, and adults, with over 2 million copies sold. He’s the author of the middle grade Dog Tags, Tides of War, Wild Ones, and Accidental Adventures series, as well as two titles in the 39 Clues. His latest middle grade series, Battle Dragons, a cyberpunk romp pitched as The Fast and the Furious meets How to Train Your Dragon, is out from Scholastic. For young adults, he’s the author of the cyberpunk duology Proxy, an ALA Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Readers, Best Fiction For Young Adults, and Rainbow List selection and the epic fantasy trilogy, Black Wings Beating, an NBC Today Show Pick, a Kirkus Best Young Adult Fantasy selection, a Seventeen Magazine best of 2018 pick, and a We Need Diverse Books 2018 Must Read, and a 2020 Rainbow List selection. He’s been a journalist and human rights researcher reporting from conflict zones and refugee camps, a young adult librarian with New York Public Library, an assistant to a film agent, and a snorkel salesman. He lives with his husband, daughter, and hound dog in Philadelphia, PA.