Just Ella picks up the Cinderella tale after the ball is over. But Ella's life is not a fairy tale, nor does Ella have a fairy godmother to make things right. Ella gets her prince, but soon finds out that being a prince doesn't make you a nice man and the only thing charming about her prince is his name. And life in the castle is meaningless protocol, superficial and repressive. When Ella refuses to marry the prince she's sent to the dungeon. She escapes with the help of a servant girl, Mary. Then Ella makes her way to a camp for war refugees run by Jed Reston, a lively companion of Ella's and social activist. Could a would-be princess fall in love with a "common" man? Could the "common man" be more of a prince than the royal prince himself? The moral of Haddix's fairy tale is to be happy means taking charge of your own destiny.