Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Princess Cimorene lives in the pleasant and exceedingly ordinary kingdom of Linderwall and has everything a young girl could possibly want. But there are two problems: she’s bored out her mind and refuses to be proper. Cimorene doesn’t fit in with her beautiful sisters and insists on learning inappropriate things, such as magic and fencing. But her parents abruptly stop the lessons, and she is sent off to visit the golden-haired, blue-eyed prince she has to marry. Any other girl would have been delighted to be betrothed to the handsome prince, but he’s boring.
With no other option, Cimorene takes the advice of a frog and seeks out Kazul, a powerful dragon. Kazul agrees to have her as his princess-in-residence, and Cimorene’s education enables her to catalogue his treasures. Despite her newly found happiness, Cimorene has to deal with a constant stream of irritating Knights and Princes who insist on saving her without actually asking what she wants. —Neha Patel