This Princess Kills Monsters: A Stepsister’s Guide to Surviving a Fairytale

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 affectionate satire of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale The Twelve Huntsmen.

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.

Born in the US, Ry Herman is now a permanent Scottish resident, and has been writing theatrical plays for most of their life. Ry is bisexual and genderqueer. Their hobbies include baking bread, playing tabletop roleplaying games, and reading as many books as humanly possible. They’ve published two supernatural romantic comedies, Love Bites and Bleeding Hearts, in the UK. This Princess Kills Monsters is their US debut.