Just Ella

Everyone knows how Cinderella's story ends: she marries the prince and lives happily ever after. Just Ella picks up after that ending. Fifteen-year-old Ella Brown has escaped her stepmother and stepsisters, won the prince at the ball, and is installed in the palace as his betrothed — and finds royal life almost unbearably dull.

Her days are filled with etiquette lessons under a stern instructor, her every movement is chaperoned, and the prince himself turns out to have little charm and less conversation. Worse, Ella comes to understand that she was chosen for how she looked at the ball, not for who she is, and that a noblewoman in this court has no power at all. When she asks to break the engagement, she discovers exactly how little say she has in her own life.

Margaret Peterson Haddix's novel turns the fairy tale inside out, giving Ella the will — and the practical nerve — to refuse a happily-ever-after that does not fit her. First in the Palace Chronicles.