Happily ever after is a thing of the past. 

A series of natural disasters has decimated the earth. Cut off from the rest of the world, England is a dark place. The sun rarely shines, food is scarce, and groups of criminals roam the woods, searching for prey. The people are growing restless. 

When a ruthless revolutionary sets out to overthrow the crown, he makes the royal family his first target. Blood is shed in Buckingham Palace, and only sixteen-year old Princess Eliza manages to escape. Determined to kill the man who destroyed her family, Eliza joins the enemy forces in disguise. She has nothing left to live for but revenge, until she meets someone who helps her remember how to hope-and love-once more. 

Now she must risk everything to ensure that she does not become . . . 

The Last Princess.

Review:
The premise of this book really drew me in upon reading the summary, and the cover added to my need to read the book. Both parts were huge factors in why I read this book, even though I had heard nothing about it, good or bad. That said, I had fairly high expectations of this book that, unfortunately, were not delivered upon.

Cover-wise, this book hit the right notes. I absolutely adore the colors used in the sky behind the model, they ranged from blue to pink with some great purple tones in there too. When you look away from the gorgeous sky, you can see the city below in ruins, showing that there had been some apocalyptic event recently because the city looks as though it had seen better days. Moving past the sky and the landscape, there's the cover model, who, too, looks like she's seen better days. Though you cannot see her face, her body language says that she has been through a lot, but is still willing to fight on. The cover came together with the cool, futuristic font used on the author and title, giving the entire thing a dystopian feel.

The characters didn't have exact faults, but they were all around bland. The main character, Eliza, didn't come off as the strong female protagonist that would have suited this story better. Instead she was a diluted pampered princess, fitting to her title, but not the rest of the story. There was nothing directly annoying about her, but the fact she was simply boring. The secondary characters were just as bland; not as developed as I had hoped they would be. The relationships were just as uninteresting for the most part, except that between the antagonist, Hollister, and Eliza. Their dynamic was interesting because he wasn't the stereotypical villain. He didn't hate Eliza in particular, he simply hated the idea of royalty being in power, and eliminating her was the easiest way to get to be where he wanted to be.

The writing was where the true problem with this book was. It was written much too simply for my tastes. There was no style to the writing, it was all very dry and without much personality, without much to build relationships with the characters. It was the staleness of the writing that was truly what brought the book down for me. It didn't allow the characters to grow, it prevented the plot from picking up to a faster speed and it just made the read slow. As I mentioned before, the plot was slightly sluggish, never quite getting to a desirable speed before the ending. The ending was fairly conclusive, though I'm not sure how the sequel (mentioned in the author description in the flap of the hardcover) will fit into the story; it seemed to wind up fairly nicely.

I really wish I had enjoyed this book more than I did, but I just didn't feel that it delivered on the amazing premise. I'd recommend this book to someone looking for a light, dystopian, beach read. I give The Last Princess a 2.5/5.