Okay, question: what is this Enchanted Forest Chronicles series? Because I’m such a sucker for fantasy, especially with a female lead, and I am so surprised I haven’t heard of this yet. What’s it about? Just from that quote about fencing it sounds fantastic!

karis-the-fangirl:

So excuse my excessive enthusiasm, sharing books with people is my favorite thing and I get really excited 😀 I’m going to answer this publicly in case anyone else is interested as well–

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles is a four book series by Patricia C. Wrede, and it consists of

1. Dealing with Dragons
2. Searching for Dragons
3. Calling on Dragons
4. Talking to Dragons

The first three books are about Princess Cimorene, who is an unconventional princess. In the first book she gets fed up with all the things that she’s not allowed to do (no fencing, no Latin, not magic, no cooking…) and when she finds out her parents are planning to marry her off she leaves home and volunteers to be a dragon’s princess. Hijinks ensue! There are sinister wizards, political intrigue, and tedious princes who won’t stop trying to ‘rescue’ her, plus Cimorene has a library to organize and she needs to borrow a crepe pan. 

This series is fabulous. They’re funny, they play around with a lot of fairy tale and fantasy tropes, Cimorene is a great character for kids to look up to (she’s practical! she’s brave! she likes to acquire skills and do useful things!), and there are characters like Morwen, a witch with dozens of cats who has a sign on her house that says ‘None of this nonsense, please’ (Morwen is so cool). 

These books are written for a younger audience–I would hand them to just about any ten year old without a qualm–but I’m 28 and I’ve been re-reading them regularly for almost two decades, I can promise that they’re just as much fun to read when you’re an adult 😉  

(ha ha, ‘adult’, what. I’m not an adult, I have no idea what that means)

Read them! Read them! They’re awesome!