Princess Academy

Miri lives on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have quarried stone and lived a simple life. Then word comes that the king's priests have divined her small village the home of the future princess. In a year's time, the prince himself will come and choose his bride from among the girls of the village. The king's ministers set up an academy on the mountain, and every teenage girl must attend and learn how to become a princess. Miri soon finds herself confronted with a harsh academy mistress, bitter competition among the girls, and her own conflicting desires to be chosen and win the heart of her childhood best friend. But when bandits seek out the academy to kidnap the future princess, Miri must rally the girls together and use a power unique to the mountain dwellers to save herself and her classmates.

Shannon Hale is the Newbery Honor-winning and New York Times bestselling author of the series Princess Academy, Books of Bayern, Ever After High, and Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, as well as stand-alones Book of a Thousand Days, Dangerous, and the graphic novels Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack, among other books. She also wrote three novels for adults, including Austenland, now a major motion picture starring Keri Russell. She and her husband, the author Dean Hale, have four children and live near Salt Lake City, Utah.
www.shannonhale.com
@HaleShannon