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Princess Claus and the Great Escape
Featuring the music video for the original song Snow Globe Prison written for Princess Claus and the Great Escape
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Noelle, nicknamed Princess Claus, is next in line to become Santa. Since before her birth an evil elf has been out to kidnap Princess Claus to ruin Christmas. In an attempt to keep her safe her parents have kept her inside Winter Wonderland all her life. But she'll do everything in her power to escape her so-called snow globe prison. Will she find a way out? Find out soon in the first story in The Chronicles of Winter Wonderland.
*
Noelle, nicknamed Princess Claus, is next in line to become Santa. Since before her birth an evil elf has been out to kidnap Princess Claus to ruin Christmas. In an attempt to keep her safe her parents have kept her inside Winter Wonderland all her life. But she'll do everything in her power to escape her so-called snow globe prison. Will she find a way out? Find out soon in the first story in The Chronicles of Winter Wonderland.
390 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 4, 2019
48 people are currently reading
95 people want to read
About the author
J.L. Gillham
2 books4 followersAuthor of the Princess Claus series (Featuring the original song Snow Globe Prison)
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 29, 2019
Rating: A snowglobe with a Christmas village inside of it
Highlight of note: Our lead is set to be the first female Santa!
Will you read more in this series? Hopefully. None have been published yet, but I am interested in what happens next.
Noelle, AKA Princess Claus, is the daughter of the current Santa. She lives at the North Pole with her family, lots of elves, some reindeer, and a pet polar bear. The tagline on the cover of the novel reads "Even Winter Wonderland can be a prison" but the story isn't nearly as dark as that makes it sound. Noelle does feel trapped. She's not allowed to leave the protective dome around her home because there's an evil elf out there who wants to kidnap her, and as she's a teenager this really chafes. But it's not like she's being tortured or anything.
Overall, the story is fun if not incredibly deep. I particularly liked seeing the growth in Noelle's relationship with her younger brother. They start off not liking each other at all, but find common ground and some degree of affection over the course of the novel.
My other favorite part was definitely the polar bear. He's timid and addicted to sugar. And he can fly when hooked up to Santa's sleigh. It almost goes without saying that I find the sleigh being pulled by polar bears to be a way cooler idea than having reindeer do it.
I never felt too invested in the romantic arc of the story. The love interest is likable, but he didn't seem very complicated and I was a bit put off by the fact that Noelle only appears to know two guys her age who aren't related to her and seems to feel they are the only romantic choices she has. The other guy we don't get to see until the end. There's some hint that the next book may have more of a love triangle conflict, but I think it's going to require this second fellow move to closer to Winter Wonderland.
I found it a bit hard to feel too sorry for Noelle, who clearly wanted me to feel sorry for her. Maybe I'm getting old, but I looked at her escape attempts and said stuff like, "You know you'll need money, right? Have you heard of ID?" and "You're just now asking where the nearest airport is? Seriously? Where did you think you were going running out into the countryside of Alaska?" Basically, I was hoping she'd fail to escape because I didn't want to watch her freeze to death or get eaten by a polar bear that hadn't been raised as a pet. And that was without taking the evil elf into consideration. All of this foolishness may be explained by her being young and very sheltered, but she felt more like a twelve-year-old than a seventeen-year-old to me.
As for the "I don't know that I want to be Santa" thing... I felt that was something that really should have been brought up in a conversation with her parents. She tries to talk to them exactly once. She says "Let's do this thing!" without explaining why she thinks it will help her, then storms out when they say "We can't do this thing!" without letting her parents fully explain their side. This is, I'll admit, somewhat accurate to how many teenagers behave. I would have liked to see more effort from her parents, though. They seem aware that something is up with her but never sit her down and try to talk to her about it, let alone force her to sit in a room until things have been discussed. Her mom says near the end that it might have been a mistake not to tell her certain things earlier and I was like, "No duh, Mom." Overall, I thought it would make a more interesting story if it was Noelle's brother who was supposed to be Santa and she was arguing that it should go to the firstborn child, not the firstborn son. (Also, if it's always been the firstborn child rather than son, how have we gone this long without a female inheriting? That seems statistically unlikely as the Santas appear to want to hand the job over by the time they're forty.)
I felt Noelle's parents were doing a bad job of passing on the Santa torch. Not only did they never actually talk to Noelle about why it was important she, and not her brother, be the new Santa, they never explained why she had to take on this mantle on her seventeenth birthday. Her father did plan on doing the Christmas Eve run with her the first few years rather than just tossing her into it like apparently happened to him despite his dad still being alive, but he never explains why it's happening now rather than after his daughter is grown. It's pretty obvious Noelle isn't mature enough to be more than an apprentice, if that, at the start of all of this, so I assume there's a reason for not saying, "You know what, we'll do the whole coronation thing when you're twenty one. Or maybe thirty," but the only clue we're given is that Dad seems tired.
As to Noelle' grandparents... Both sets live in Winter Wonderland, but we never see any of them. The closest we come is a cameo by her grandmother's dog. I'm not sure what was up with that. As indicated earlier, I don't quite get what triggers Santa handing the job down to his offspring and I never figured out what he does after he's stopped being Santa.
The villain was very shallow, although it looks like the next book in the series will flesh him out some. He doesn't have any motivation in this book other than the standard "ruin Christmas" desire villains in stories like this tend to get assigned. I'm hoping that when we see him again later we'll get more about why he's trying to take down Santa.
So, yeah, there were some problems with this book, but I did enjoy it and fully intend to read the next installment whenever it gets released. And actual teens may find it easier to relate to Noelle than I did. I recommend it as a playful Santa story for people who are looking for more fun than depth. Which, let's face is, is a lot of people in December as the holiday stress makes many of us desperate for escape.
If you're interested in the notes I took while reading, they're on my blog at https://andyreadsthings.blogspot.com/...
Highlight of note: Our lead is set to be the first female Santa!
Will you read more in this series? Hopefully. None have been published yet, but I am interested in what happens next.
Noelle, AKA Princess Claus, is the daughter of the current Santa. She lives at the North Pole with her family, lots of elves, some reindeer, and a pet polar bear. The tagline on the cover of the novel reads "Even Winter Wonderland can be a prison" but the story isn't nearly as dark as that makes it sound. Noelle does feel trapped. She's not allowed to leave the protective dome around her home because there's an evil elf out there who wants to kidnap her, and as she's a teenager this really chafes. But it's not like she's being tortured or anything.
Overall, the story is fun if not incredibly deep. I particularly liked seeing the growth in Noelle's relationship with her younger brother. They start off not liking each other at all, but find common ground and some degree of affection over the course of the novel.
My other favorite part was definitely the polar bear. He's timid and addicted to sugar. And he can fly when hooked up to Santa's sleigh. It almost goes without saying that I find the sleigh being pulled by polar bears to be a way cooler idea than having reindeer do it.
I never felt too invested in the romantic arc of the story. The love interest is likable, but he didn't seem very complicated and I was a bit put off by the fact that Noelle only appears to know two guys her age who aren't related to her and seems to feel they are the only romantic choices she has. The other guy we don't get to see until the end. There's some hint that the next book may have more of a love triangle conflict, but I think it's going to require this second fellow move to closer to Winter Wonderland.
I found it a bit hard to feel too sorry for Noelle, who clearly wanted me to feel sorry for her. Maybe I'm getting old, but I looked at her escape attempts and said stuff like, "You know you'll need money, right? Have you heard of ID?" and "You're just now asking where the nearest airport is? Seriously? Where did you think you were going running out into the countryside of Alaska?" Basically, I was hoping she'd fail to escape because I didn't want to watch her freeze to death or get eaten by a polar bear that hadn't been raised as a pet. And that was without taking the evil elf into consideration. All of this foolishness may be explained by her being young and very sheltered, but she felt more like a twelve-year-old than a seventeen-year-old to me.
As for the "I don't know that I want to be Santa" thing... I felt that was something that really should have been brought up in a conversation with her parents. She tries to talk to them exactly once. She says "Let's do this thing!" without explaining why she thinks it will help her, then storms out when they say "We can't do this thing!" without letting her parents fully explain their side. This is, I'll admit, somewhat accurate to how many teenagers behave. I would have liked to see more effort from her parents, though. They seem aware that something is up with her but never sit her down and try to talk to her about it, let alone force her to sit in a room until things have been discussed. Her mom says near the end that it might have been a mistake not to tell her certain things earlier and I was like, "No duh, Mom." Overall, I thought it would make a more interesting story if it was Noelle's brother who was supposed to be Santa and she was arguing that it should go to the firstborn child, not the firstborn son. (Also, if it's always been the firstborn child rather than son, how have we gone this long without a female inheriting? That seems statistically unlikely as the Santas appear to want to hand the job over by the time they're forty.)
I felt Noelle's parents were doing a bad job of passing on the Santa torch. Not only did they never actually talk to Noelle about why it was important she, and not her brother, be the new Santa, they never explained why she had to take on this mantle on her seventeenth birthday. Her father did plan on doing the Christmas Eve run with her the first few years rather than just tossing her into it like apparently happened to him despite his dad still being alive, but he never explains why it's happening now rather than after his daughter is grown. It's pretty obvious Noelle isn't mature enough to be more than an apprentice, if that, at the start of all of this, so I assume there's a reason for not saying, "You know what, we'll do the whole coronation thing when you're twenty one. Or maybe thirty," but the only clue we're given is that Dad seems tired.
As to Noelle' grandparents... Both sets live in Winter Wonderland, but we never see any of them. The closest we come is a cameo by her grandmother's dog. I'm not sure what was up with that. As indicated earlier, I don't quite get what triggers Santa handing the job down to his offspring and I never figured out what he does after he's stopped being Santa.
The villain was very shallow, although it looks like the next book in the series will flesh him out some. He doesn't have any motivation in this book other than the standard "ruin Christmas" desire villains in stories like this tend to get assigned. I'm hoping that when we see him again later we'll get more about why he's trying to take down Santa.
So, yeah, there were some problems with this book, but I did enjoy it and fully intend to read the next installment whenever it gets released. And actual teens may find it easier to relate to Noelle than I did. I recommend it as a playful Santa story for people who are looking for more fun than depth. Which, let's face is, is a lot of people in December as the holiday stress makes many of us desperate for escape.
If you're interested in the notes I took while reading, they're on my blog at https://andyreadsthings.blogspot.com/...
December 7, 2022
This book was a MESS! XD The narrative "structure" was all over the place! Less scaffolding, and more a trash mobile: disconnected themes and plot devices swirling around a central character. Creatures and characters were seemingly introduced as foils, but then were either easily conquered or never actually featured in person (just in recollections from the narrator). Subsequent paragraphs would veer off on unrelated tangents, as if the narrator were easily distracted from telling her own story. Scenes were interrupted by a chapter break mid-dialogue, for no obvious reason. The "villain" has been "plotting" to kidnap the heroine for 15 years, but is only successful because of a crime of opportunity, and then runs amok playing pranks in Santa's workshop instead of making good on his "evil plan". The "heroine" has been dreaming of one day ditching Santa's workshop for "adventure in the great wide somewhere", but her "great escape" ends in her choosing to stay home and join the family business! She only leaves twice, and one of her "great escapes" is entirely underwhelming: She orders sushi and sings carols at a diner. FIRSTLY, my daddy always warned me: don't order fish at a diner! Secondly, she is supposed to be fleeing, why does she DAWDLE?! The only other time she leaves home, she trespasses on a bird sanctuary, and is the catalyst for a MASSIVE FIRE that destroys the park O____O. And this is glossed over as no big deal! WHAT?!?!? I don't care how much ennui this teenage girl had with playing Santa, she and her friends committed a CRIME, and do not deserve hot cider and cookies! Naughty List for life! The villain is campy, the heroine is a ripoff of Elsa, and I don't even want to get into the "romantic" lead, because he has less chemistry than an unvarnished plank of wood XD.
Which is a crying shame, because this author did WORK. She invented an alphabet, and wrote a music video, and interviewed people who actually live in Alaska for tips on how to write about their culture... But all that effort didn't make up for juvenile writing. It's as if a teacher assigned a group project on modern day Alaska, and one classmate wrote about the nature and wildlife, and one wrote about holiday and family traditions, and ONE - the author - covered the posterboard for the report with glitter and Frozen stickers and stick drawings of Santa and his elves!
This author had ideas, and just blurted them all out, and then never refined them into a cohesive, compelling story. And half of those ideas were cartoonish fun, but dangerous and misleading for a younger audience. The other half of those ideas just seemed to be autobiographical. You want to dress up as Elsa and sing Frozen karaoke? Go have fun!
But don't:
- Feed candy to polar bears. They are not pets. They are not children. Do not do.
- Build a bonfire in a bird sanctuary. Birds will die.
- Carry a broken snowglobe around in your backpack for a week. That s--- will leak everywhere.
- Keep your employees in an underground crypt and call it "free lodgings".
- Discover an underground crypt full of slave labor, and ignore it.
- Drink sour milk.
I could go on. I don't want to. This book was nonsense, and trying to draw sense from it in hindsight to make up for my wasted time, is just not going to happen. Save your pennies, folks. Skip this one. Go read The Golden Compass instead.
Which is a crying shame, because this author did WORK. She invented an alphabet, and wrote a music video, and interviewed people who actually live in Alaska for tips on how to write about their culture... But all that effort didn't make up for juvenile writing. It's as if a teacher assigned a group project on modern day Alaska, and one classmate wrote about the nature and wildlife, and one wrote about holiday and family traditions, and ONE - the author - covered the posterboard for the report with glitter and Frozen stickers and stick drawings of Santa and his elves!
This author had ideas, and just blurted them all out, and then never refined them into a cohesive, compelling story. And half of those ideas were cartoonish fun, but dangerous and misleading for a younger audience. The other half of those ideas just seemed to be autobiographical. You want to dress up as Elsa and sing Frozen karaoke? Go have fun!
But don't:
- Feed candy to polar bears. They are not pets. They are not children. Do not do.
- Build a bonfire in a bird sanctuary. Birds will die.
- Carry a broken snowglobe around in your backpack for a week. That s--- will leak everywhere.
- Keep your employees in an underground crypt and call it "free lodgings".
- Discover an underground crypt full of slave labor, and ignore it.
- Drink sour milk.
I could go on. I don't want to. This book was nonsense, and trying to draw sense from it in hindsight to make up for my wasted time, is just not going to happen. Save your pennies, folks. Skip this one. Go read The Golden Compass instead.
November 11, 2020
Noelle, the daughter of Santa Claus, lives in Winter Wonderland. Princess Claus and the entire town have been kept inside a picture-perfect snowglobe to protect them from all the dangers of the outside world—specifically, the evil elf who wants to kidnap Noelle and ruin Christmas. Can Noelle break free without getting caught, or will the elf catch her and steal everything Santa loves most?
Princess Claus and the Great Escape is a fun read that really got me into the Christmas spirit. It’s light and brings the adult reader back to their childhood. I enjoyed the interactions with the elves, reindeer, and especially her pet polar bear. Noelle may have felt trapped, but Winter Wonderland seemed like a nice place to be stuck (or at least, it was fun to read about). I kept imagining it as one of those Christmas villages that people visit during the season.
I loved that this was a clean read that covers topics I think many teenagers can relate to. Even when things are good, curiosity still has a heavy pull. And like Noelle, a lot of us find possibly disappointing our parents to be too much. Also, the dash of romance was a nice addition. After all, what’s Christmas without a little romance?
This is a great read for those looking to step into the Christmas season with a little mischief, mystery, and heart. I recommend it to fans of Rachel Morgan’s books or those who enjoyed the movies Noelle with Anna Kendrick or The Santa Clause Trilogy with Tim Allen.
Princess Claus and the Great Escape is a fun read that really got me into the Christmas spirit. It’s light and brings the adult reader back to their childhood. I enjoyed the interactions with the elves, reindeer, and especially her pet polar bear. Noelle may have felt trapped, but Winter Wonderland seemed like a nice place to be stuck (or at least, it was fun to read about). I kept imagining it as one of those Christmas villages that people visit during the season.
I loved that this was a clean read that covers topics I think many teenagers can relate to. Even when things are good, curiosity still has a heavy pull. And like Noelle, a lot of us find possibly disappointing our parents to be too much. Also, the dash of romance was a nice addition. After all, what’s Christmas without a little romance?
This is a great read for those looking to step into the Christmas season with a little mischief, mystery, and heart. I recommend it to fans of Rachel Morgan’s books or those who enjoyed the movies Noelle with Anna Kendrick or The Santa Clause Trilogy with Tim Allen.
March 16, 2021
It's a decent Christmas read
It was a cute story about a girl accepting her destiny. I struggled to get into the story, but I don't think it was any fault of the book. It was well written and I did like a lot of the side characters.
The interactions between her and her brother seem fairly accurate to siblings I've seen before. I think I just lacked a connection to Princess Claus which made it hard for me to get into, but I could see other people really enjoying it.
Give it a try if it is your type of book. I just wasn't excited for it.
It was a cute story about a girl accepting her destiny. I struggled to get into the story, but I don't think it was any fault of the book. It was well written and I did like a lot of the side characters.
The interactions between her and her brother seem fairly accurate to siblings I've seen before. I think I just lacked a connection to Princess Claus which made it hard for me to get into, but I could see other people really enjoying it.
Give it a try if it is your type of book. I just wasn't excited for it.
January 23, 2020
After waching the movie "Noelle", this book popped up on my screen. Instead of Nicky being the next Santa, Noelle is, and she, too, doesn't want to be trapped, forever in Winter Wonderland. This is the story of a young girl trapped by circumstances beyond her control, but that doesn't stop her from trying, anyway. Easy reading, a little romance, a little mystery, and some fun. I totally recommend this one.
October 29, 2021
I came across this book on the freeboosky link I received. The cover and the blurb pulled me in but the story was definitely not what I thought it would be. Maybe the story is geared for younger readers but I felt that nothing truly ever happens in this book. I kept saying to myself maybe it will get better on the next page, next chapter, etc by the end I was finishing it just because I was that determined to prove myself right. Sadly no such thing happened. Honestly it was kind of boring.
December 10, 2019
Great Book
Great Book I love it it was great and powerful and cute little book I love the book I hope that you will enjoy this book as I did
Thank You For Letting Me Read This Book I love 💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘
Great Book I love it it was great and powerful and cute little book I love the book I hope that you will enjoy this book as I did
Thank You For Letting Me Read This Book I love 💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘
April 2, 2021
It is a nice twist on santa's daughter
'princess claus' has a lot going on. Feeling trapped, not knowing who to trust and a huge amount of teenage angst. A lot of missteps as she learns. A good young adult book
'princess claus' has a lot going on. Feeling trapped, not knowing who to trust and a huge amount of teenage angst. A lot of missteps as she learns. A good young adult book
December 18, 2020
A lovely Christmas story. With some danger and suspense, lots of secrets and teen rebellion and angst. I enjoyed this tale and found it just right for a lighthearted seasonal read.
December 18, 2020
Good story
This book is a clever take on who Santa Claus really is, but the teenage angst really makes the story drag.
This book is a clever take on who Santa Claus really is, but the teenage angst really makes the story drag.
December 20, 2020
A very interesting take on the holiday traditions. It was very ingenious and entertaining. Read in Dec of 2020 during the Corona Virus Pandemic.
January 5, 2022
Bit boring, not much happened and when it did there wasn't really much of an ooooo what's gunna happen it was more like oh meh. But lots of people liked it so might just be my opinion.
January 25, 2025
Adorable
This book has adventure, love, and adorable characters as well as a great Christmas story. I loved it and it was a perfect holiday read.
This book has adventure, love, and adorable characters as well as a great Christmas story. I loved it and it was a perfect holiday read.
October 16, 2025
It took a little bit to get into this holiday read but by the end I found it to be charming.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews