Princess Books in Order

The Princess books are light-footed fantasies that play with royal tropes while still giving their heroine hard choices. The story begins in The Decoy Princess with Tess, who has grown up as the Princess Contessa of Constenopolie, confident in her rank and secure in the knowledge that one day she will marry well and rule. That certainty evaporates when an attack on the palace reveals she is not the true heir at all, but an orphan raised as a decoy to protect the real princess.

In the space of a few chapters, Tess’s comfortable life is gone. Enemies see her as a useful hostage or a loose end to be cut. The real princess, now queen, has to decide what to do with the double who kept her safe for years. Tess, stripped of title and status, leans on the skills that no one thought mattered: her knack for a high-stakes card game, her training in etiquette and diplomacy, and the small, tightly controlled magic that her handlers never fully understood.

The books are set in a compact, politically tangled world of neighboring kingdoms, shifting alliances, and trade routes guarded more by reputation than armies. Tess may not have formal power, but she knows how the court thinks, and she uses that knowledge to navigate plots that reach well beyond palace walls. Alongside her are a roguish card player, a rival officer from an opposing army, and a handful of people whose loyalties are never entirely clear.

In Princess at Sea, Tess’s role shifts again. Posing as a lady-in-waiting while her look-alike sister rules, she is sent to chaperone the royal honeymoon voyage. Pirates board the ship, seizing Tess, the real queen, and her new husband. The kidnappers seem more interested in testing their captives than ransoming them, and the cramped, constantly moving setting turns political maneuvering into a game played in stolen whispers and rigging shadows.

Across both novels, the core conflict is about identity and agency. Tess has to decide who she is when the role she was trained for is taken away, and whether being "only" a decoy makes her life and choices any less real. The magic is present but not overwhelming, used more as an extra pressure point than a solution. The tone stays quick and often funny, with sword fights, double-crosses, and romantic tension keeping the pages turning.

If you enjoy court fantasy that feels like a swashbuckling caper, with a heroine who survives on wit and nerve rather than overwhelming power, the Princess duology is a compact, complete story that still leaves its world feeling larger than what you see on the page.