The Force of Such Beauty

Bourland (Fake Like Me) draws inspiration from real-life princesses for her deliciously scandalous latest. In 2000, 21-year-old Caroline Muller from Johannesburg sets the record for the women’s marathon. A year and a half later, she falls during the Athens marathon, shattering her hip and suffering a cheekbone fracture. After five surgeries at an American hospital, where she meets Prince Ferdinand Fieschi of Lucomo, who’s recovering after a car accident in which his fiancée was killed, her reconstructed face radiates with a new beauty. A relationship develops between Caroline and Ferdinand, and she hopes for a fairy tale marriage (“The force of such beauty is meant to destabilize a person. I was no exception”). The match turns out to be anything but happy, as she is soon confronted by the ridiculous demands of producing heirs and respecting etiquette. Indeed, the life of a princess is far lonelier and more dangerous than she imagined. Though a plot involving the royals’ shady business practices feels anticlimactic, Bourland offers a smart critique of a corrupt world’s disenchanting effects on a naive young woman. The result is satisfyingly dark and twisted. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders and Assoc. (July)