Description
Princess Stella di Battista, the first princess to have ever been born before a prince on the island kingdom of Celestina, knows that everyone thinks of her as a burden. When eleven princesses are born in her wake, she is elevated to the loathsome status of cursed. Restless and longing to escape the censure of the court, Stella secretly joins her male friends in their academic studies as they start learning from the Great Garavente, a man who is part Da Vinci and part Galileo. But just as she unlocks her passion for studying the stars, she simultaneously unlocks a door to a magical, musical realm, the same realm her now deceased mother used to escape to in order to flee the confines of palace life. Within this place of dancing, flirtation and enchantment, Stella is not only relieved of her 'cursed' title, but she begins to fall in love with a dreamworld prince who encourages her as she makes astronomy discoveries that are taboo for females in the real world. Between indulging in her studies by day and escaping to a magical dance world by night, Stella is unprepared for the return of her aunt Maddelina, a rival with magical powers of her own who has come back to Celestina to make herself de facto queen. With her birthright in peril, Stella realizes she has to do something drastic to prove her worth. She decides to combine both her love of science and her newfound abilities with magic to launch the Contest of Stars, a competition that will pit her against every male mind near and far to determine who truly deserves to rule a kingdom.
Prologue
