When Shakespeare wrote “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” it was King Henry IV moaning that people with great responsibility don’t sleep very well. While riches and power don’t seem like much of a problem to me, fictional royalty often has a lot of kingdom-saving and evil battling to do.
So if you’d like to forget your troubles and read about queens and princes and knights with some worthy struggles, take a look at some of these titled titles.
Starting with a pretty classic fantasy trope, we have Twin Crowns by Catherine Doyle. Wren has always known that one day she would steal her sister’s place in the palace. Trained from birth to return to the place of her parents’ murder and usurp the only survivor, she will do anything to rise to power and protect the community of witches she loves. Or she would, if only a certain palace guard wasn’t quite so distractingly attractive, and if her reckless magic didn’t have a habit of causing trouble.
Last Sunrise in Eterna by Amparo Ortiz is a modern fantasy with Puerto Rican influences. Scavenging and selling elf corpses to support her family, Sevim finds a chance encounter with an elf prince setting her revenge in motion and must enter the magical elven realm where her fate is linked to someone she least expected.
Another fantasy, inspired by the badlands of 17th century India, is Of Light and Shadow by Tanaz Bhathena. And it’s a standalone! Roshan is out for justice. Abandoned by her parents, she is now leader of the Shadow Clan, a gang of farmers-turned-bandits impoverished by the provincial governor’s atrocities and corruption. Roshan’s goal: earn back rights and dignity for her people. Prince Navin is second in line for the throne, he has never been close to his grandmother, Queen Bhairavi. When a night out drinking with friends leads to his capture by the Shadow Clan, Navin schemes to befriend Roshan and use her as a means to escape. The closer Roshan and Navin get, the harder it becomes to fight their growing attraction. But how can they trust each other when the world as they know it starts to fall apart?
Want a modern take on royal life? Try Aimée Carter’s Royal Blood. As the King of England’s illegitimate daughter, Evan knows a thing or two about keeping secrets. But when she’s forced to spend the summer in London with her father and the royal family, her identity is mysteriously revealed, and suddenly the world is dying to know every juicy lie the press prints about her. After a fun night turns deadly, the escalating rumors and fallout threaten to tear her life apart.
The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich by Deya Muniz is a graphic novel option and filled with terrible puns. Which apparently some people enjoy. Lady Camembert wants to live life on her own terms, without marriage. Well, without marrying a man, that is. But the law of the land is that women cannot inherit. So when her father passes away, she disguises herself as a man and moves to the capital city of the Kingdom of Fromage to start over as Count Camembert. But it’s hard to keep a low profile when the beautiful Princess Brie catches her attention. Camembert can’t resist getting to know the princess, but as the two grow closer, will she be able to keep her secret?
