The Princess Companion: A Retelling of the Princess and the Pea by Melanie Cellier Review

 For the longest time I have been wanting to read The Four Kingdoms series by Melanie Cellier along with its follow up series Beyond the Four Kingdoms and Return to the Four Kingdoms. However, I was always daunted to do so since it would take me a long time to finish. Not to mention the Return to the Four Kingdoms series is unfinished meaning more books would be released. However, I finally decided it was about time to stop hesitating and just read them and so I began the first book The Princess Companion A Retelling of the Princess and the Pea. The story didn’t instantly grab my attention and seemed to move slowly. But I kept at it and by the end it was a good read.

The Princess Companion is the story of a woodcutter's daughter named Alyssa who gets lost in a forest while traveling to the city to meet with her aunt. Stumbling upon the royal family's winter palace the servants accidentally mistake her as one of the princesses the king and queen had invited. Staying the night in the princess chamber Alyssa feels something hard under her bed which she believes must be a loose spring. In the morning she meets the king and queen along with their son prince Maxmillion (Max) and two mischievous twin princesses Lily and Sophie. After clearing up the confusion of Alyssa’s arrival (and her not being a princess) the queen asks how she slept. Not wanting to be rude Alyssa hides the truth declaring she slept well. Impressed with how she treats his daughters the king hires Alyssa to be a princess companion to them and so her new life at the castle beings. Throughout her story Alyssa make new friends and enemies among the servants and nobles, uncovers a dangerous threat to her kingdom, helps the queen regain her self-esteem, and even falls in love.

This book is divided into three parts with most of the chapters told from Alyssa’s point of view. I found Alyssa to be a somewhat boring protagonist at first, but I eventually warmed up to her. She is good at reading people and seeing their possible ulterior motives which she uses to help the king look for potential threats among foreign ambassadors. However, despite all her good sense it drove me crazy that she couldn’t see Max’s true feelings for her. She assumes at one point that he thinks of her as a sister which made me roll my eyes. Alyssa is a good protagonist but certainly not a favorite one. Prince Max was likable enough, but he acted kind of possessive towards Alyssa both in this book and its sequel The Princess Fugitive. However, I could tell he truly loved Alyssa with all his heart, and it was nice to see them develop as a couple. The twin princesses Lily and Sophie kept me smiling throughout the book at their mischievous behavior. They each have books of their own in the sequel series Beyond the Four Kingdoms where they are grown up and go on adventures of their own. My favorite character, however, was Queen Eleanor who represents a somewhat down on her luck version of Cinderella. She came from humble beginnings with a bad stepfamily who married into the royal family after they fell in love at the ball. However, after gaining the throne early took its toll on Eleanor leading her to become distant to her family. She is determined to marry Max to a princess and goes to her godmother for help in the beginning where she receives the magic pea which will lead Max to finding his right bride. The Queen then sends for princesses across different kingdoms to visit Arcadia with the plan to test them all secretly by seeing who would feel the pea over several mattresses. I felt bad for Queen Eleanor who had been locking away her feelings away for so long and looked forward to seeing her regain her happiness and confidence as the book continued. It was also a good way to introduce the other kingdoms princesses who each have books of their own.  

The setting of this book is a medieval one ruled by kings and queens who get frequent get help from fairy godmothers. The book doesn’t elaborate on this too much but basically the magic in their world comes from the fairy godmothers who serve under the High King. The godmother's job is to help guide deserving monarchs to finding true love and make them good leaders. They also attend christenings especially of princesses who then tend to favor. They also can punish those who need to be taught a lesson. Despite not being physically present in the books I have read so far; they have great influence on the four kingdoms and their presence is certainly felt.  

Overall, this was an enjoyable read that although started out slow definitely improved as I kept reading it. I am honestly torn on how to rate this book since I feel 3.5 stars is too low a rating while four stars seems too high. To compromise I will give it 3.8 stars. I recommend this book to fairy tale lovers and fans of Melanie Cellier. It is an enjoyable read but there are better retellings out there. I look forward to reading more of Melanie Celliers books. Until next time E.V.A.