The Princess Blog

After the massive Snow White  debacle , Disney was said to have put their future live-action remakes on hold , particularly one they were planning of the 2010 animated classic, Tangled . That plan didn't last long. It was only a few short months later that casting for the film began. Earlier this week, the official announcement was made  that the auditions were complete, and Teagan Croft  and Milo Manheim  were selected to play Rapunzel and Flynn Rider/Eugene, respectively. These two actors certainly resemble their animated counterparts and are safer choices than the diversity castings for The Little Mermaid   and Snow White , which resulted in much controversy despite both actresses giving the roles their all. Still, should this movie even be made ? I get it. Sixteen years is long enough for a child to become an adult, and yet the animated version of Tangled  still feels fresh in recent memory. Maybe it's because it never really faded away, being heavily...

Disney Jr. has been sharing sporadic updates on their social media  to remind us that the upcoming Sofia the First sequel series, Royal Magic , is set to debut later this year. The frustrating part is that they are keeping the project very much under wraps, avoiding any artwork, plot, or production details, and focusing instead on nostalgic clips of the original show. This makes fans hungry for more information, causing them to turn to less reliable sources for any nugget of hype they can find. The Disney fan insiders delivered these coveted nuggets with The Disney Scope: Magic at a Glance , a Discord panel, which revealed some early leaks of Sofia's new design, along with potential new character and plot information about the upcoming show. Since this is not an official press release, all of this information should be taken with a grain of salt, much like the Mexican Sleeping Beauty project . Sofia fans had a lot to say about this first look at the sequel series redesign shared o...

I have now received ARCs for just about every book in To Win a Dark Heart , a multi-author series of villainous fairy tale retellings. Among the ones I've read so far, Falling for the Mad King  by Sydney Winward is my favorite. This book does an excellent job of bringing two troubled souls together to improve each other's lives for the better with a touch of whimsy and magic. The book combines Alice in Wonderland  with "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," two stories that often lack clearly defined villains, allowing the author to create her own protagonists. Parts of it resembled Once Upon a Time in Wonderland , one of my favorite romantic TV shows of all time, but it is very much an original story. Falling for the Mad King  takes place primarily in Wonderland and introduces a villainous incarnation of Alice. The book follows the story of Rylan, the Mad King, an original character whose personality is a mix between the Mad Hatter and Queen of Hearts, leaning more towa...

Many new anime series come in or go out with a bang. The Magical Fated Princess: Who Made Me a Princess , which released its final episode on Crunchyroll yesterday, is not one of them. Based on a Korean manhwa , the series was produced by a Chinese studio and flew by like a whisper on a stray breeze, barely noticed by the anime fan community. It boasts beautiful, feminine character designs and takes place in a magical world, but the story leaves much to be desired. According to fan commentary , important elements were missing from the original source material, making this adaptation lackluster. Still, the series brings some unique concepts to the table as far as princess content goes, such as focusing more on the father/daughter relationship than on romance. Who Made Me a Princess is the story of Athanasia (Who else read that as Anastasia at first?), a princess who has been reincarnated to repeat her life in the footsteps  a very tired anime trope  that has been used in drove...

Falling for the Doomed Bride  by C.K. Beggan is the second of many ARCs I received from the villainous multi-author series, To Win a Dark Heart , which will be the primary focus of my blog posts over the next few months. The book contains a crossover of "Sleeping Beauty" and "Bluebeard,"  though it uses these stories as background dressing for the main plot, which reads like an adaptation of Pirates of the Caribbean . I personally have never understood the appeal of glorifying medieval seafaring criminals, but fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean  movies will likely enjoy it. Both protagonists are presented on the morally gray side of the spectrum rather than misunderstood , which is perfectly acceptable for a villainous retelling, though not always the most relatable choice. Although neither "Sleeping Beauty" nor "Bluebeard" took place on a ship, this book makes it work by making these fairy tales the building blocks for a seafaring adventure...

Falling for the Sorcerer  by Jes Drew  is the first of many ARCs I received last week from the new multi-author series of villainous retellings, To Win a Dark Heart . I will be reviewing these books in the order they were received, so expect to see a lot of reviews from this series on here in the coming weeks. Each book in To Win a Dark Heart contains a romance between two different fairy tale villains. In these books, the villains are misunderstood and not truly evil. Falling for the Sorcerer  combines "Swan Lake" and "Rapunzel,"  introducing nicer versions of Gothel and Rothbart, whose stories differ greatly from their wicked counterparts. It's a great book for older readers who find fairy tale heroes difficult to relate to due to their age. Forget everything you know about the stories of "Swan Lake" and "Rapunzel" because this book takes both in a completely new direction. Falling for the Sorcerer  is a second-chance romance about two wor...

The holiday season  is upon us, which means it's almost time to start a new year filled with new princess content. Within the past few weeks, there has been a slew of announcements regarding upcoming princess properties, and very few of these came from Disney. Netflix is currently the best place for original animated content . They have at least two new animated princess movies coming out in 2026. On the gamer front, a trailer was recently released for a tie-in video game of the new Winx Club reboot . The upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie has also been confirmed to introduce a popular princess from the franchise who has yet to make her theatrical debut. Let's dive into a new year of princesses. Last week, Netflix released the first screenshot from Steps , a fractured retelling of "Cinderella" focusing on one of the ugly stepsisters . Although a similar made-for-TV movie came out in 2002 based on the Gregory Maguire novel, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister , this ada...

As promised in my review of the Disney Magic  cruise ship, I am taking the time to write a full review of Twice Charmed , the long-running "Cinderella" musical that is exclusive to the Disney Magic and serves as the inspiration for the 2007 direct-to-DVD sequel, Cinderella III: A Twist in Time . Though many people are familiar with Cinderella III  since the DVD was more accessible to the public, Twice Charmed predates it by two years and contains many key differences from the film, including original songs and an original character, Franco, the wicked Fairy Godfather to Lady Tremaine. While the plot of Lady Tremaine using magic to turn back time so Prince Charming will choose one of her daughters resembles the animated sequel, the stage show is an entirely different experience that takes full advantage of its live medium. The show begins with the same projection technology that Disney has been using for all their live shows for the past decade or so. An image of a storybook...

There are times when we can all use a little magic in our lives. For me, that was midway through 2025, when I booked a Very Merrytime cruise on the Disney Magic , which set sail earlier this week. This was my second Disney cruise after having the most amazing time on the Wish  a couple of years ago. Unlike the Wish, which was the newest ship at the time (though it isn't anymore), the Magic is the first and oldest ship in Disney's fleet. Still, there were many similarities between the two, which made me feel like an experienced Disney cruiser. Since it was my second time sailing with Disney, I was automatically inducted into their Castaway Club, which provided advance booking perks and a free tote bag and set of room key lanyards. When I first booked this cruise, I didn't know much about what to expect except aside from the magical experience I had on the Wish, and that was enough for me. Imagine my joy upon learning that, like the Wish, this ship features two princess stage...

I was pleased to receive a recent ARC for The Seamstress and the Pea  by Megan Rose Walker . This was the first book I read by this author, and I was impressed by her worldbuilding and romance. "The Princess and the Pea"  is a fun story to adapt because every version of it is unique. This one opens with the infamous pea scene and takes the story in an entirely new direction that is reminiscent of a "rags to riches" romcom with some fun and familiar tropes that are presented creatively. Although this story is not set in a magical world, it works well as a historical romance with themes of family and class. Eleanor thought she had been brought to the castle with a simple task of helping to make a dress for the queen. She did not sign up to be chosen as the fake fiancée of Prince James, who wishes to deter the advances of the calculating Princess Celestine. Though reluctant at first due to her nobility-hating father, Eleanor warms up to the idea of pretending to be in ...

Silenced Beauty  is the first book I've read by Ashley Mendoza , as well as the first in a multi-author series of fairy tale retellings called Cursed Brides . It has made me eager to read more of both. This book really nails it as a retelling of "The Wild Swans" with action, romance, and intrigue. "The Wild Swans" doesn't get as many adaptations  due to being somewhat lesser known, and I think this is my favorite adaptation that I've read of it thus far. The addition of a bridal competition  and psychic visions help to spice up the plot, and the Christian theming is tastefully incorporated into the story. This book does an outstanding job as an introduction to both this author and the Cursed Brides series as a whole. When Alianna has a dangerous vision of an evil sorcerer's betrayal to the crown, her entire family is cursed to prevent her from speaking out about it. Her eleven brothers are transformed into swans and delivered to the king as a gift, ...

It's been a year-long wait, but the second half of the  movie adaptation of Wicked  has finally arrived in theaters. I have been a fan of the Broadway musical for twenty years, so I was excited to see it brought ot he big screen. This film covered the second act of the play, and more than doubled its length from the stage version. Though the additional footage was more noticeable in this movie than it was in the first one, I did not think it detracted from the plot in any way. The second act of the musical is quiet, emotional, and mature, which was accurately reflected by this adaptation. In terms of authenticity, it helped that Winnie Holzman , the writer of the book for the Broadway musical, also wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation, and that Gregory Maguire , the author of the thematically divergent novel that inspired it, was not involved. Since both Wicked  movies were shot simultaneously, this movie contains many of the same breathtaking practical imagery ...