Tuesdays at the Castle

Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George 4 out of 5 stars

I first came across Jessica Day George browsing through the BYU Bookstore's selection.  It was a common pastime of mine.  I've been visiting the BYU Bookstore for pretty much as long as I can remember and once I was actually attending BYU for school, I made sure to go at least once a month, just to see the new selection available.  The thing about the BYU bookstore - it has a great selection of fiction books written by LDS authors.

Now, you might be thinking, what does that have to do with anything?  Well, as a aspiring LDS fiction author, the answer becomes evident.

 BYU used to have the Teen Fiction/Youth section by the Twilight Zone and it was then that I noticed there was a particular shelf that seemed to be designated to primarily to LDS authors.    It was then that I noticed a certain book.  This book didn't seem like much, but the cover featured a young woman dressed in a beautiful ball gown.  One thing that most people don't readily know about me is that I have a certain fascination for ball gowns and gowns in general.  And this one instantly stuck out in my mind.  Without even reading the inside flap, I bought the book.  Since it was titled "Princess at the Midnight Ball" I couldn't help but think, "I love the ballgown and I like fairy tales and books to do with Princesses, so, why not?"

This began my journey with Jessica Day George.  Once I read this one book, I had to find every other book I can written by the author.

Tuesdays at the Castle just so happens to be the most recent work by Jessica Day George.

This book was written for a younger audience, but I still found it rather enjoyable.  It's a short little thing, only 237 pages on my Nook and I whipped through it in just a few hours.  Celie is the youngest princess living at Castle Glower, a magical castle that changes every Tuesday.  Celie is the only one to take an active interest in the changes within and tries to map everything out in her atlas.

Life goes on as normal until her parents are ambushed and its unknown whether they are dead or alive.  Celie along with her brother and her sister must defend the castle from their neighboring countries while everyone is out to prove that they are unfit to rule the kingdom.  With plots to take over the throne in abundance, Celie and her siblings must take a stand.  And why shouldn't they win, with Castle Glower on their side?