Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George

Galen is a young soldier returning from war; Rose is one of twelve princesses condemned to dance each night for the King Under Stone. Together Galen and Rose will search for a way to break the curse that forces the princesses to dance at the midnight balls. All they need is one invisibility cloak, a black wool chain knit with enchanted silver needles, and that most critical ingredient of all—true love—to conquer their foes in the dark halls below. But malevolent forces are working against them above ground as well, and as cruel as the King Under Stone has seemed, his wrath is mere irritation compared to the evil that awaits Galen and Rose in the brighter world above. 

I love Fairy tale Retellings. It brings back so many memories of reading fairy tales when I was younger and now authors are re-writing them so they can be enjoyed by tweens and teens. I remember reading this from a picture book and the Grimm's fairy tale book when I was younger, and I remember watching the Barbie 12 Dancing Princesses movie. But this story, was much darker, mysterious and deeper than children's fairy tales.

This book does have a lot of similarities to the original story as to the soldier and the cloak, and then the dancing princesses and the soldier gets married to the oldest etc. But what was really different was the King Under Stone was added as an antagonist to the story. I don't really remember the cause for their dancing in the original story, but whatever – it was amazing!

I really enjoyed the humor and budding romance in this book. It was an interesting touch that the soldier liked knitting, and that he became a gardener. At this point I was like "awwwww" it was so cute with Rose and Galen! OH and the second oldest with Galen's cousin was really cute as well. *Sigh* I love Happy Endings!

What I found to be confusing was of course, as most readers would find, the Princesses. I found it really difficult to remember the names of which Princess was which (except for Rose) and I just got muddled up in the end. But thats okay! if you're like me, then just keep going. It wont distract you so much from the main story. Other than this, the book was amazingly well paced, there were no slow spots and it captures readers from the very beginning.

I enjoyed Princess of the Midnight Ball, as it provided a romantic, adventurous and mysterious re-telling of the 12 Dancing Princesses. Can't wait to read Princess of Glass, another re-telling which features one of the Princesses from this book!