Review of ‘Undercover Princess’ by Connie Glynn

Blurb

When fairy tale obsessed Lottie Pumpkin starts at the infamous Rosewood Hall, she is not expecting to share a room with the Crown Princess of Maradova, Ellie Wolf. Due to a series of lies and coincidences, 14-year-old Lottie finds herself pretending to be the princess so that Ellie can live a more normal teenage life.

Lottie is thrust into the real world of royalty – a world filled with secrets, intrigue and betrayal. She must do everything she can to help Ellie keep her secret, but with school, the looming Maradovian ball and the mysterious new boy Jamie, she’ll soon discover that reality doesn’t always have the happily ever after you’d expect…

A thrilling world of parties, politics and bad ass princesses, this is the first book in the brand new series THE ROSEWOOD CHRONICLES.

Review

Lottie Pumpkin has worked hard to fulfil her mother’s dream of attending Rosewood Hall school. There she has to share a room with the rebellious Ellie, an undercover princess. However, when Lottie’s new friends suspect her of being the undercover princess she is stupefied and can’t do anything to convince them otherwise! Lottie soon becomes a steadfast friend to Ellie, allowing her to live her dream of leading a normal teenage life whilst simultaneously, Lottie can live out her dream of being a royal, pampered lady. Ellie’s history is steeped in legends and a royal line that has been crowned for generations. Lottie’s parentage and heritage is more mysterious. Her father is mentioned but with no real detail and her mother passed away, leaving her a cryptic tiara that has been passed down from a previous ancestor who attended Rosewood Hall school. As readers, we are left feeling like there is much more to Lottie Pumpkin’s story than first meets the eye and this leaves us feeling intrigued as to what might be revealed in the rest of the book and in deed the series!

Rosewood Hall school is lifted from the pages of a fantastical realm with a huge dollop of quintessential Britishness. It lies within its own magical realm of English quaintness with wisteria covered gothic architecture, traditional student houses and lethal bodyguards trained to protect the elite students. The house mothers are described as forces of nature and embody the schools values whilst the shrinking violet Headmaster is rarely seen or heard. The setting really captures the readers heart and is filled with delicious detail to keep you wanting to find out more about its history and secrecies. Lottie soon befriends the library assistant Binah, who begins to give the girls cryptic puzzles to solve that lead to more information about some of the school’s mysteries. Like the best boarding schools, it clearly has lots of skeletons in its closets!

Besides the main characters of Lottie and Ellie, whose blossoming friendship is endearing and sweet. There are a whole host of privileged, snooty students whom the girls never know whether to hang around with or retreat from suspiciously. Jamie is introduced as Ellie’s brooding bodyguard and is soon responsible for Lottie’s safety too. Jamie’s past, like Lottie’s, is shrouded in more questions than answers. Lottie frequently questions his motives for becoming such a young bodyguard, his relationship with Ellie and his ever-changing personality. Jamie becomes yet another puzzle to crack in the unfolding of the tale. There are lots of LGBTQ sparks and other romantic sparks that appear to flame-up and die-down, perhaps paving the way for potential future romances in the rest of the series, leaving us plenty of couples to root for.

Undercover Princess is a perfect middle grade book for lovers of fairy tales, Princess Diaries and Harry Potter all rolled into one. There is some mild violence in the book but I would still recommend it for 11-14. This isn’t my usual type of read however, I am glad to have given it a go, it brought me a sense of nostalgia for my youth and the books I used to read as a teenager. For lovers of YA fantasy, light academia or light-hearted fantasy, you can’t go wrong with this novel. Look out for my review of the fifth title in the series, Princess Ever After, coming next week which is available now.

Thank you to Penguin Random House Children’s for access to the novel via NetGalley and a thank you to WriteReadsTours for inviting me onto the #UltimateBlogTour for these wonderful novels.

You can purchase a copy of ‘Undercover Princess’ here.

You can purchase a copy of ‘Princess Ever After’ here.

About the Author

Connie Glynn has always loved writing and wrote her first story when she was six, with her mum at a typewriter acting as her scribe. She had a love for performing stories from a young age and attended Guildhall drama classes as a teenager. This passion for stories has never left her, and Connie recently finished a degree in film theory. It was at university that Connie started her hugely successful YouTube channel Noodlerella (named after her favourite food and favourite Disney princess). After five years of publicly documenting her life and hobbies to an audience of 900,000 subscribers on YouTube, Connie closed the book on the Noodlerella project in a bid for more privacy and to pursue her original passions in the performing arts. Connie now writes music and fiction full- time. Follow Connie on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr @ConnieGlynn