Princess Before Dawn

Wide-Awake Princess #7

by E.D. Baker

In the seventh tale of the Wide-Awake Princess series, Princess Annie's beloved home Treecrest has become a favorite destination for all sorts of magical beings. One new set of guests are particularly strange, and they are ready to take over a new hunting ground. Annie and Liam turn to their only friends who can help, Francis and Zoe. But when Francis and Zoe arrive in Treecrest, the new hunting group is having too much fun to pack up and go home and nothing Francis or Zoe say seems to help.

Can Annie, Liam and their new friends figure out a way to reclaim Treecrest before it's overrun with hunters? Or will Annie lose her one true home?

Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Romance, Childrens, Fairy Tales, Magic, Fiction

217 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2018

About the author

E.D. Baker made her international debut in 2002 with The Frog Princess, which was a Texas Lone Star Reading List Book, A Book Sense Children's Pick, a Florida's Sunshine State Readers List pick & a 2006 Sasquatch Book Award nominee. The Frog Princess inspired the Disney's Princess and the Frog!


E. D. Baker was born in Buffalo, New York and spent most of the next eighteen years in the Town of Tonawanda with her older brother and her parents. She married her husband while in college, and had two children a few years after graduating from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. When her son was four, the family moved to the state of Maryland. With two young children at home, E.D. worked part time in her husband’s business and took writing classes at the local community college. She continued taking writing classes after the birth of her second daughter, but when she and her husband divorced, she went back to school and entered the SIMAT (School Immersion Masters in the Art of Teaching) program at Johns Hopkins University. After graduating, she taught fifth grade until her parents’ health began to fail. Her son had already graduated from college when E.D. and her daughters moved north to be closer to her parents. Having gained a new perspective on what is important in life, E.D. decided that it was time to believe in herself and devoted her time to writing. Her first book, The Frog Princess, was published in 2002. E.D. has written 25 books to date and has no plans to quite writing anytime soon.

Currently E. D. Baker lives on a small farm in Maryland where she and her family breed Appaloosa horses. They also have dogs, cats and goats.

If you have a question or a comment for E. D. Baker regarding her books, you can e-mail her at edbakerbooks@gmail.com and she will try very hard to reply to your e-mails. (Just keep in mind it may take a while before she responds, because she is working on a new book for you to enjoy!) For updates, announcements on upcoming books and daily posts by E.D. Baker be sure to follow her on Facebook.

Reviews

[Anna Moz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, I really, really love this series. However, I'm giving it three stars because of a few reasons:

1) Liam is not a major character. He's the main character's husband, for goodness sake! He should be adventuring with her. I feel like Ms. Baker was just trying to temporarily get rid of him so she wouldn't have another character to write. As a writer myself, I do find that fair. I'm glad that she had a good reason as to why he had to stay behind at the castle, though. I, personally, wouldn't have been able to come up with something that good (haha!).
a) But also, even when Liam was there, he seemed...distant. Maybe it was character development, but he was as not as affectionate with Annie as he used to be. It could also be because he wasn't present for most of the book, or maybe the pressure of becoming king has made him start to withdraw.

2) Zoe, Francis, and Audun were bascially the protagonists. Trust me, they were cool characters, but I felt that Ms. Baker was trying to appeal to her fans of "The Frog Princess" series. I respect that, but it made Annie an unimportant side character. I'm not even sure her presence was necessary for the journey besides the fact that her morals wouldn't allow others to solve her problems for her. In this case, as much as I know she needed an adventure, she was just another person to transport and mouth to feed.

3) This is probably the last book in this series. I'm really going to miss it!

I did like that Annie and Liam were finally crowned King and Queen of Dorinocco after it being put off for two books because of mishaps and having to save family members/kingdoms.

(Ms. Baker, if you're reading this, I'm sorry. I really do love this series. Annie and Liam are such a cute couple and I hope to hear about their future soon!)

[Marlee · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book aloud to my children. We enjoyed both this series, or at least the first few books in this series, as well as the Frog Princess series. As such, we thought it was exciting for this book to crossover and have so many characters from both series. However, there were so many inconsistencies from both series that it left us frustrated as the book progressed. It also didn’t even seem to be Annie’s story anymore. Had Francis used his dragon scale to find Zoe’s parents right from the start, it would have mitigated the need for almost all of the events of the whole story. This left nearly everything seeking rather pointless. We tried to just enjoy the book for what it was and have fun with it. However, we could all hardly wait for it to be finished. It was quite disappointing.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vampires, really??? Plus the postcards are nothing new, so why is everyone coming to Treecrest now? Suddenly lots of witches and wizards and vampires go at the same time, but in the fifth book when Annie and Liam use the postcards on their honeymoon (I'm sorry, "grand tour") they never see anyone else traveling by postcard.

Internal logic aside, I did kind of enjoy the book, but more for the resolution of Annie and Liam's storyline that I've been following since book one. The vampire subplot felt out of place in this world full of fairy tale characters and creatures. I loved the series as a whole, but after this I'm glad it was the last book.

[Willow · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is definitely darker than the other books in the series. It features vampires complete with biting people's necks, sipping stale blood from chalices and getting drunk off it, and haunting a castle. There were also ghostly wraiths with cold hands plaguing Annie. The witch doctor from the last book makes another appearance and is considered one of the good guys.

The series started going downhill for me somewhere around book 4 or 5. I think the first several are fun fairytale reads, while the latter half of the series just got weird.

[IllyrianShadowsinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked it, but Liam was not very kind and did not treat Annie or other people like how he should have. And Annie's amount of courage is completely unrealistic and not very relatable, but I ,loved the vampires. When Annie rescued Garrid from that awful Castle and talked to the duke about how Reynard was telling everybody he was dead, I just wish we could have heard more about Reynards punishment. Very good read altogether!

[Rmsooon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ive read"princess before down " ,, the last book of wide awake princess,, it was okay i thought it would be better ,, i gave it 3.5 out of 5

[Marcy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute story

[Favour · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a pretty calm read.

[Colleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I found out there was another book in this series, I was excited! I liked this series for it was cute, fluffy, and just overall a feel good series. This book fell flat for me. There were interesting moments, but my overall excitement for it declined. There was a character that I think came from the Dragon Princess series that I was like "Huh? What is this?! How does that happen biologically speaking?" Yes, this is fantasy and I am the first person to be like "It's fantasy who cares about real-world logic," but this character's background obviously crossed a line for me. I think the target audience of this series would think nothing of it.

Verdict: Overall, it was a cute and fluffy book for a cute and fluffy series.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rounded up because the series is over. This one is a bit more, erm, interesting, as it's finally acknowledged that the characters have had enough adventures to learn some strategies and deal with somewhat scarier menaces. But it's still fluff, and, as the other reviewers point out, it's still very light and silly. I only recommend the first book. Even if you love it, don't bother with the rest of the series.

[Olivia Bevan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This author needs to learn when to end a series. I’m so glad to be finished. I think this book was rather pointless, the plot didn’t make sense to the story and felt very out of the blue. Plus Liam wasn’t in the story hardly at all. I’m also so confused why she brought in all these characters from her other book series, they were just there but they didn’t grow in their own story at all. I’m glad the loose ends got tied up but this should have been a 4 MAYBE 5 book series.

[Katelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

When people from another world come to Treecrest, Princess Annie visits her friend Millie. Millie knows someone who can help Annie, so off they go to Zoie and Francis's home. Audun, another friend, joins them on a trip (without Millie, because she couldn't come) to find Zoie's parents, who know a lot about the people visiting Treecrest.

[Alex Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like the whole story, I like how Annie and her friends figured out
How to fix the situation in her home. I'm just really upset that this
Series had to end. I was really into it.
E.D. baker is really an amazing author and I hope that she makes
More of these in the future, I'll be looking forward to read them.

[bumblethunderbeast · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read a lot by E.D. Baker and enjoyed quite a bit of it. For some reason, this particular series took a real nosedive for me. She's one of my "fun" reads and I almost had to force myself to finish this one.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t really enjoy the vampires in this book. They were kind of creepy. I also missed having Liam in the book. It was nice to see people of all different types working together to solve a problem however.

[Bethany Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what an awesome end to a lovely series!
Oh and I loved the humor around Squidge, he is so funny!
It's nice that Annie and Liam have so many friends too.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book ended strong but dragged in the middle. Still, these are wonderful stories and I can’t wait until my little girls are old enough for them.

[Emma Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story. Very magical and full of fantasy. I didn’t like the vampires, but I liked the friendship and love.

[Celeste · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this series a lot. I started reading it with Isabelle when she was little and she outgrew it, but I never did. :)

[Mary Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, quick read.

[Elena Gussman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how E.D. Baker's books can take you to a new world! Full of adventure, fantasy, lodes of fun, and kissing!!! 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨

[The · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was great to come back and visit with the characters. I loved how we got to hang out with the rest of Greater Greensworth more.

[Ciera Legue · Rating 5 out of 5]

i loved how this wraps everything up but also has them going on an adventure to stop the unexpected guests.

[Cassandra]

urgh i kinda want to read this for completionism's sake but can't quite stomach it right now

[Grace Fischer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a great redemption from the book before it. I don’t want to spoil the plot, so that’s all :)

[Adriana Fernandes · Rating 3 out of 5]

3⭐

[Book-A-Saurus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very beautiful story. Loved the ending.

[Clara · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as I love this series I did not love this book. It wasn't incredibly captivating, there wasn't anything extraordinary happening, it was much of the same. I would love a book about Annie that contains more drama.