This Princess Kills Monsters
A princess with a mostly useless magical talent takes on horrible monsters, a dozen identical masked heroes, and a talking lion in a quest to save a kingdom—and herself—in this feminist fairy tale satire.
“The Princess Bride meets Shrek.”—Susie Dumond, author of Bed and Breakup
“Exactly the sort of queer fairy tale for grown-ups that I have yearned to read.”—Ryka Aoki, author of Light from Uncommon Stars
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: Autostraddle, Fangirlish, Reactor, Book Riot, Reading Glasses Podcast, Denver Public Library
Someone wants to murder Princess Melilot. This is sadly normal.
Melilot is sick of being ordered to go on dangerous quests by her domineering stepmother. Especially since she always winds up needing to be rescued by her more magically talented stepsisters. And now, she's been commanded to marry a king she’s never met.
When hideous spider-wolves attack her on the journey to meet her husband-to-be, she is once again rescued—but this time, by twelve eerily similar-looking masked huntsmen. Soon she has to contend with near-constant attempts on her life, a talking lion that sets bewildering gender tests, and a king who can't recognize his true love when she puts on a pair of trousers. And all the while, she has to fight her growing attraction to not only one of the huntsmen, but also her fiancé’s extremely attractive sister.
If Melilot can't unravel the mysteries and rescue herself from peril, kingdoms will fall. Worse, she could end up married to someone she doesn’t love.
- Pages
- 416
- First published
- June 17, 2025
- Language
- English
- Edition
- Ebook
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Reviews
Finished June 4, 2026
Finished August 2, 2026
4.5 ⭐ true rating. I came very close to DNF'ing this after the prologue. The storytelling wasn't clicking with me and I wasn't sure this was going to be my kind of book. BUT I'm so glad I gave it another chance and pushed through because it was a blast! It's chaotic in the best possible way! It's witty, snarky, and completely embraces being ridiculous! It never takes itself too seriously which made it such a fun read. The banter between Melilot, her sisters, Sam, Jack, and basically all of the characters was my absolute favorite part. The more absurd the situations each chapter brought the more I laughed. I also really loved how this started out as a retelling of the 12 Huntsmen but it incorporated sooo many different fairytales along the way. It was fun to see how each of them were reimagined and blended together!