Giveaway + Double Review: Princess for Hire & The Royal Treatment

Check them out on goodreads

Lindsey Leavitt's website

Lindsey Leavitt is a delightful, fun-making genius! I haven't had this much fun since I read Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series. In fact, these two series share a few traits, making it easy for fans of one to pick up the other with confidence.

1) Duplicitous, but exciting careers involving undercover gigs
2) Teen girls capable of extraordinary feats
3) Confusing, twisty romances where nothing is what it seems
4) Realistic family relationships and problems (given the fantastic circumstances)
5) Plenty of awkward teen moments
6) Plenty of reasons to cheer!

Princess for Hire starts off the planned series with a POP. A bubble pop. That's the way Desi's talent agent gets around--in a magical bubble. And the talent Desi didn't know she had? Magic!

What girl doesn't wish she could be princess for a day? Desi signs up for the seemingly glamorous job of substituting for modern day princesses in much need of a vacation. But she really has no idea what she's getting herself into. Through pretending to be somebody else, Desi discovers who she really is--that she's a girl with impact, like Grace Kelly in Casablanca or Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.

Desi is only thirteen, on the young side for YA, but as the book explains, people with MP (magic potential) tend to be mature for their age. Still, she struggles with bad hair days, armpit sweat circles, and unrequited crushes. She's an every girl. At thirteen, I would've escaped happily into Desi's world and learned a few things about myself right along with Desi. I'm sure girls of all ages will eat up the magical escapism and relate to the real life, day-to-day to which Desi must always inevitably return.

The Royal Treatment continues the series with a fabulous new development! No spoilers here, but I'll just say that it gave me more than one reason to cheer. Only a few months have passed since Princess for Hire and Desi still has her braces on, but she's not the same girl who jumped out of the bathtub, screaming at a rogue bubble. She's learned how to make an impact and she's eager to take her do-gooder-ing to the next level.

I loved Lindsey Leavitt's sometimes bizarre settings, and words like 'technomagical.' The world building is pure delight. Another thing I loved was the characterizations. Desi's best friend, Kylee, is especially multi-dimensional. And I appreciated that Desi never backtracked. That is, the lessons she learned from mistakes in the first book stuck, and she learned from new mistakes in this book. But even though Desi does make mistakes and misjudgments, she is consistently true to herself, which makes her the quintessential Disney princess, even though she isn't a princess at all.

The potential for this character is exciting, and I very much look forward to future installments of the Princess for Hire series. Five stars for both books.

While Princess for Hire is available right now, The Royal Treatment is due out May 3, 2011. So if you haven't read the first one, I recommend buying the first and pre-ordering the second. It's perfect timing to get sucked into Desi Bascomb's technomagical world of princesses and duplicity.

If you'd like to win a copy of Princess for Hire and an advanced reader copy of The Royal Treatment, comment below: which royalty, modern-day or fictional, would you like to be for a day! 

• 1 point for your comment with the answer to the above question.
• 2 points if you're an old follower
• 1 point if you're a new follower
• 1 point if you tweet (with links)
• 5 points if you blog about this contest (with links)

Contest ends April 21, 2011 at 11:59 EST.