Princess Before Dawn

Author: E.D. Baker
Illustrator: N/A

© Date: 2018
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 212
Chapters: Yes
Illustrations: No
Publisher Recommended Age: 10 years and up
Bonus Activities at End of Book: No

Summary from Book: Princess Annie works to save Treecrest in another magical Wide-Awake Princess tale!

Princess Annie’s beautiful home of Treecrest has become a favorite destination for all sorts of magical beings. But one set of guest is particularly strange, and they are ready to take over a new hunting ground. Annie and Liam turn to their only friends who can help, Francis and Zoë. But when Francis and Zoë arrive in Treecrest, the hunting group refuses to pack up and go home. And nothing Francis and Zoë say seems to help.

Can Annie, Liam, and their friends figure out a way to reclaim Treecrest before it’s overrun with hunters? Or will annie lose her beloved home? The magic continues in E.D. Baker’s irresistibly fun and fantastical Wide-Awake Princes series!

Page Pig Thoughts: After reading the first book in this series, The Wide-Awake Princess (review), I was curious if the romance would continue. Annie and Liam are married now, but this book had Liam staying behind while Annie adventured. While they love each other, not really many swoon worthy moments when they aren’t together for the whole story.

While I enjoyed this one, I did not enjoy it as much as the first one. The first few chapters that were trying to summarize the previous books felt rather forced and were slow to get through. I was tired while I read this one, but I struggled to keep track of the relationships between Emma, Millie, Zoë, Francis, and Audun. Parts of them were easy (who was married to who), but mother/daughter/friend was challenging for my tired brain. Fortunately keeping those straight was not a central part of the story, but a good reminder of how tricky it can be to pick up a series with 6 books between what you read before.

I found Annie’s non-magic to be rather muddled at this point in the series. I understand how magic that is immune to Annie’s non-magic would make an interesting plot twist for a story or two, but now magic working or not working around Annie seems more of a matter of convenience or secondary thought. For awhile it seemed that all magic worked around her now, but then some didn’t and some did. Annie buys Liam a magic pillow that ensures a good night sleep, but I couldn’t figure out if it would or would not work around her. I found this magical twist part of the story unfortunate.

Overall, I enjoyed this story and seeing how everything played out. The adventure aspect is fun and keeps you wondering what will happen. I would read another in the series, but maybe one closer to the beginning.

Family Unit: Annie and Liam are living in Dorinocco with King Montague while they are preparing for their coronation.

Conflict/Social Issues:

The Magic Marketplace has been selling postcards that allow you to instantaneously travel to a destination, lots of unwanted guests start arriving in Treecrest.
The vampires are not interested in leaving Treecrest, and bite a few townspeople that are then turned into vampires.
Pure blood vampires are aristocratic and look down on anyone else, half blood vampires, humans turned vampires, and especially humans.

Positive Items:

Annie is able to scare off the witches from Treecrest.
Annie and Liam are willing to separate for the good of helping Treecrest. Liam can help defend everyone around the castle from the vampires, and Annie can go looking for the solution to get the vampires to leave.
Squidge the sprite came to help Annie and Liam. While he creates some trouble, in the end, he is able to help Annie and Liam scare off the vampires.

Items of Interest:

Level of romance – married people hug each other, hold hands, kiss each other, and talk to one another. Near the end, Liam sweeps up Annie in a giant hug and gives her a kiss. The romance aspect of this one is not like the first one, it’s not even noteworthy.
Annie is taking a bath in her room. A vampire is outside the window and sees her get out of the tub. Liam comes in and also sees her outside the tub. Yes, for both of these instances, she does not have clothes on. Annie is flustered by the vampire seeing her in the tub. I can’t remember if Liam manages to cover Annie with something before Squidge comes into the room.
Zoë is the daughter of the vampire prince. She is only a half blooded vampire because her mother is a bat. Zoë can go out in the daylight and feeds off bugs. She is married to a wizard that is trained as a warrior, Francis.
Audun can be in human form or dragon form.
Vampires are afraid of dragons.
Vampires do not look kindly upon humans and will not even converse with them or acknowledge their presence, if they do not have to.
Many mentions are made of vampires drinking blood, some is even fermented and makes them kinda drunk. Raw, bloody meat is also served on a platter in a vampire castle.
Vampires have guards for their castles during the daytime. One castle is guarded by wraiths that Annie unknowingly frees from being trapped for eternity at the vampire castle. A different castle has harpies, the traveling group is able to escape via traveling postcard.
Reynard the vampire goes back to his home and pretends that his uncle died fighting humans. He takes over the castle, poisons the vampire prince, traps the vampire prince’s bat wife in a cage, tries creating a ploy to marry Zoë (vampire prince’s daughter, even if she is just a half blood), and lets his friend attempt to bite/feed off Annie. His plans do not work out in the end.
The vampire prince, Garrid, is near death. He is saved by a witch doctor named Ting-Tang that Annie met somewhere before apparently.
Sprites are too sweet for vampires and make their teeth instantly fall out. The vampires will then have to drink donated blood for the rest of their lives because they cannot feed from the source.
Annie, Liam, and their friends go to the Magic Marketplace to take the Treecrest postcards off the sales table. They wind up threatening the witch who is reluctant to give up a part of her money making postcard business.
Liam’s mother was banished from Dorinocco and is now on a witch island. Liam’s brother, Clarence, is in a different land running with the tribes people. Clarence was apparently supposed to apprentice with the witch doctor, but didn’t stay.
Liam’s father, King Montague, mentions that he and the Queen were not a good match like Annie and Liam. He sees a woman that he is interested to converse with at the coronation.
King Montague has gout. At the end of the story, Ting-Tang, the witch doctor, leaves a gift to cure it.
The men in the story are all willing to fight whatever comes their way to protect the woman that they love.
Millie is pregnant, so her husband, Audun, is careful of how much time that he spends away from her. Despite really wanting to go to the coronation, he was willing to stay behind to spend time with Millie.
The story ends with Liam being crowned King of Dorinocco and Annie being crowned the Queen.
As Liam and Annie look around the crowd at the coronation, they admire how many different types of guests are seated happily side by side (witches, fairies, sprites, vampires, and humans). They note that “the world is changing” and “all we can do is make sure that the people we love can handle the change and don’t lose sight of what’s important, like the ones you love the most.”

Other Books in Series (At Time of Posting):

Book 1 – The Wide-Awake Princess (review)
Book 2 – Unlocking the Spell
Book 3 – The Bravest Princess
Book 4 – Princess in Disguise
Book 5 – Princess Between Worlds
Book 6 – The Princess and The Pearl

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