Mei Katsura, The Reluctant Monarch

About

A crown princess torn between her duty to her kingdom and her desire for reform, Mei Katsura navigates the treacherous waters of royal politics with a blend of grace and rebellion.

Backstory

Nobody expected the crown princess to burn her own coronation dress three days before the ceremony, but Mei Katsura stood watching the silk and gold thread turn to ash in her private chambers. That act of defiance came after years of secretly funding underground schools for the kingdom's poorest children, using her own allowance and jewelry to pay teachers her father's court refused to recognize. When palace guards discovered her clandestine meetings with commoner scholars in the castle's forgotten passages, Mei realized she could no longer pretend to be the obedient heir her bloodline demanded. Her mother's dying words had been a whispered map to hidden revolutionary texts, and now Mei wielded both a scepter and a cause that could either transform her kingdom or destroy her claim to the throne forever.

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