I don’t know anything about Dawn Cook at all, biographically, because it isn’t available on the internet. She has apparently published six books, four in the “Truth” series and two “Princess” books, of which this is the first one. The first “Truth” book, The Hidden Truth, is the first book she ever wrote; she spent approximately five years on it, and did many revisions. From what I’ve read, that’s a bit unusual; most writers have several books hiding on their hard drives or in boxes before they write the one that will be their first published novel. The Decoy Princess was published in 2005.

Tess is the only child of the rulers of Costenopolie, or so she thinks. It turns out that she was a peasant child, purchased by the chancellor who was Tess’s closest advisor. When the actual princess was born, a prophecy was spread that caused several attempts on the baby’s life, so the baby was raised in an abbey off in the country, and Tess was raised as the princess. When she is twenty and a viable suitor comes calling, she finds this out, and doesn’t react well. However, the suitor — Prince Garrett — reacts even more poorly, and he stages a coup to take over the country. Can Tess find the real princess before he does, and can she save the country she grew up thinking would be hers someday?

I liked Tess; she was our first-person narrator, and an interesting combination of useless-princess (can only pick out clothes, shop, and look pretty) and skilled spy (the chancellor had been training her to survive for years). Her skill with the poisoned darts, and of course her ability to resist the poison, made her considerably more likely to survive most of the dangerous situations she encountered, and I liked her ability to survive. I didn’t like her name, though — her full name is Contessa, and Princess Contessa — Princess Countess — doesn’t make any sense to me. I neatly avoided that by calling her ‘Tess’ only in my mind, and pretending that it was short for something else.

The other characters had names that ranged from bland — Heather, Tess’s maid; Stephen, her father — to properly fantasy-world-like — Captain Jeck, Kavenlow. (Not, of course, that I insist that ever fantasy land have made-up and unpronounceable names, but I’m always confused when secondary worlds seem to go through the same name-fads as our real world.) As to the other characters themselves, a lot of them were a bit flat, other than (in the case of the males) the particular level of attraction that each holds for Tess. Heather (the maid) was pleasant; I always like best female friends, even if she had the stereotype of caring about Tess’s looks more than Tess herself did.

Overall, it was the political intrigue of the story, more than even the possible romances, that held my interest throughout the book. I can’t say a lot without giving too much away, but there is a lot more going on behind the scenes than Tess could ever guess. However, she does display a surprising amount of political savvy, even early on when she thinks she’s still the princess. I was a bit confused as to whether the princess would become the queen with a prince consort or whether her husband would actually be the ruler of the country, based on some comments to Prince Garrett, but I may just have missed something. Although the book is a tad uneven in some ways, it’s still quite enjoyable and I am looking forward to reading the sequel, Princess at Sea. 3.5/5 stars.