Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede, 1990.

This is the first book in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles.  The fun thing about this series is that it parodies many popular fairy tales and their tropes.  Some of the books in the series also take the form of fantasy mysteries with some puzzle or nefarious happenings that the characters have to figure out.

From when she was a young child, Princess Cimorene of Linderwall has been bored with the kind of life that is expected from ordinary princesses.  Unlike her six older sisters, Cimorene doesn’t have golden curls.  She has black hair, and she’s way too tall for a cute little princess.  She’s also very stubborn.  When Cimorene gets bored of the usual princess lessons involving dancing, embroidery, and etiquette, she pushes other people in the castle into giving her different types of lessons.  First, she convinces the armsmaster to give her fencing lessons.  Then, she gets the court magician to give her magic lessons.  She also arranges Latin lessons, cooking lessons, economics lessons, juggling lessons, and so forth.  Each time her parents find out about her unusual lessons, they put a stop to them because none of the subjects that Cimorene finds interesting are “proper” for a princess to study. 

When Cimorene’s parents try to arrange for her to marry a prince that she doesn’t like, she finally decides that enough is enough.  Cimorene meets a talking frog in the castle pond, and after talking over her problem with him and saying that she’d rather be eaten by a dragon than marry the prince, the frog recommends that she run away.  He even gives her directions on where to go after she leaves the castle.  Not having any other plan, Cimorene takes his advice . . . and ends up at a dragon’s lair.

It works out for the best, though.  Rather than being eaten, Cimorene asks the dragons in the lair if they are in need of a princess.  She isn’t quite sure what princesses who are taken captive by dragons do, but she can cook (as part of her earlier cooking lessons) and do other chores.  Although one of the dragons, Woraug, wants to just eat her, the dragon called Kazul takes her on as her princess.

Cimorene finds it interesting being a dragon’s princess.  She cooks for Kazul and also helps to organize her treasure hoard and library.  As is expected when word gets out that Cimorene is a dragon’s princess, knights come to try to rescue her.  They are shocked when Cimorene turns them away, and it takes awhile before Cimorene is able to convince them that she’s really happy with the dragons and doesn’t want to be rescued.

Cimorene even makes new friends.  Morwen, a witch friend of Kazul’s, comes to visit and teaches Cimorene more about magic.  Morwen is also very practical and suggests putting up a sign (something like “Road Washed Out”) to discourage knights from approaching Kazul’s lair.  It is while Cimorene is putting out the sign that she means the wizard Zemenar.  His presence in the area is suspicious because wizards and dragons do not get along.  Wizards do not use their own magic but use their staffs to soak up magic from magical places or magical beings – like dragons.  When wizards take magic from dragons, they actually take part of their essence, and give them a reaction that’s similar to allergies.  Zemenar is also head of the Society of Wizards, so it’s doubly suspicious if he’s been hanging around a dragon’s cave.  When Cimorene tells Kazul and her friends about seeing him, they become concerned, wondering what he’s after.

Cimorene also meets other princesses who are the captives of other dragons: Keredwel, Hallanna, and Alianora.  At first, they also have trouble believing that Cimorene actually volunteered to be a dragon’s princess and that she likes it.  Cimorene doesn’t like the arrogant attitudes of Keredwel and Hallanna, but Alianora is pleasant, and the two of them become friends.  Alianora tells Cimorene that, although she was taken captive by Woraug, her family basically set her up for it.  Like Cimorene, she was under a lot of pressure to do the things that everyone expects of fairy tale princesses, but she wasn’t much good at them, and things never turned out as one might expect.  The wicked fairy who came to Alianora’s christening when she was a baby didn’t curse her; she just enjoyed the party and had a wonderful time.  Alianora also didn’t prick her finger on the spinning wheel that her busy-body aunt gave her, and when she tried to spin straw into gold, she got linen thread instead.  When various fairy tale schemes failed to work for Alianora, her interfering aunt arranged for her to visit a village, knowing that Woraug was going to ravage it.  As Morwen noted, princesses who are taken captive by dragons and then rescued can expect to make good marriages.  Although being abducted by a dragon was a shock, Alianora says it’s not so bad; Woraug mostly ignores her since she doesn’t know how to cook, and it’s a relief for her to get away from her nagging aunt.  The only downside is that the other, more conventional princesses are really annoying.  Alianora and Cimorene bond over their unconventional lives as fairy tale princesses.  Cimorene gets the idea to send some of her knights and princes to go rescue Keredwel, thus taking care of two problems at once.  Alianora also helps Cimorene with her efforts to find a fire-proofing spell to protect the princesses from accidental burning from the dragons, and later becomes her ally when things get more serious.

Zemenar returns to Kazul’s cave and, while Cimorene tries to subtly pump him for information, he sneaks a look at a book about the history of dragons.  He seems to be interested in the section about how they settled in the Mountains of Morning, how they chose their king, and the Caves of Fire and Night, where they found the special stone that they use to choose their king.

Then, the king of the dragons is murdered, poisoned by dragonsbane.  The wizards have a confederate among the dragons themselves, and they want something that only the king of the dragons can give them.

By the time the murder is committed, Cimorene and Kazul have a pretty good idea of who the conspirator among the dragons is.  The wizards think that they’ve found a way to rig the ceremony for choosing a new king so that the dragon who supports them will win, giving them what they really want.  However, Cimorene foils their plan with the help of her friends.  The mystery/conspiracy elements of the story are great and help add weight to balance out the lighter, fairy tale parody elements.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.