Princess Olivia Investigates the Wrong Weather

The first book in Lucy’s new series, Princess Olivia Investigates the Wrong Weather tells the story of Princess Olivia, a young girl who definitely doesn’t want to be a princess.
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Princess Olivia Investigates the Wrong Weather tells the story of Princess Olivia, a young girl who definitely doesn’t want to be a princess because its boring and means she has to learn about pointless things like table manners or how to address a Grand Duke with their proper title.

Instead, she wants to escape in order to learn about the real world beyond the Palace walls but no one will let her. Also, no one will answer any of her questions. She has started to suspect that her parents, the King and Queen of the Kingdom of Alez don’t know as much as they think they do about what really goes on out there, beyond the mountaintop Palace gardens, over the high walls and through the massive gates which are always kept locked.

But to her surprise, one day, her wish comes true but not at all in the way she expected. A rabble of strangely dressed individuals burst into the throne room and tell her parents they have to leave the Palace – now! A new President is taking over and the Royal Family’s time is up. To her parents horror, they are escorted out of the Palace, with just a pillowcase filled with the Queen’s clanking tiaras and Olivia’s teddy bear and favourite book of maps.

With her Mum and Dad, the now former King and Queen, Olivia finds herself waiting at the bus stop outside the Palace gates. They wait for a long time as none of them even know how to hail a bus. Eventually, one stops for them and they embark on their new lives as the saggy old bus twists and turns down the mountain road to the country’s capital City, a place Olivia has only ever seen in pictures.

Once down in the City, in her new life, Olivia is both thrilled and astonished by how different the world is to the one she learnt about in the Royal Library up at the Palace. She is overjoyed that at last, she can go to school and meet other kids. But she is puzzled by something very strange, which no one seems to want to talk about.  She makes lots of observations in her note book about the phenomena she experiences and she asks questions at school but she starts to suspect that she’s come across a topic which grown ups shouldbe tackling but for some reason, are ignoring.

With the two friends she makes at school, Ravi and Helga, Olivia forms a society of investigators. Using the principles of scientific investigation, the three friends set out to crack the biggest mystery of all and the one which affects everyone – why has the weather gone wrong? The air is dirty, the trees are dying, it’s hot one minute, then snowing the next. Floods sweep through the city, they can’t drink the tap water and they nearly get caught in a freakishly massive storm.

Meet the Characters

Here are some of the characters in the story.

Click on the down arrow to read more about each character.

Princess Olivia is the 9 year old heir to the Kingdom of Alez, a small country with a coast on one side and mountains on the other. Her family have ruled the country for over a thousand years and expect to carry on for another thousand. She lives with her Mum and Dad, Queen Paragona and King Tolemy the Thirty Second in a mountain top palace.

Olivia doesn’t really like being a princess. She finds it very boring and her parents only let her have lessons in topics she finds really dull, like playing the lute or learning table manners. Olivia has decided to give herself an education by reading all the books in the Royal Library – but they are not very helpful. She thinks she may have learnt how to joust from one of them but at the same time, suspects this isn’t going to be a useful skill when she finally achieves her dream of escaping the Palace.

One day, to her enormous surprise, her life changes immediately. Her dream of leaving the Palace comes true but not at all in the way she expected. Pushed into a completely new environment, Olivia at first struggles to adjust but quickly learns that she has greater resilience, perception and ability than she could ever have thought.

Olivia is bright, engaging, quirky, stubborn and loyal. She makes friends quickly in her new world and is adaptable and resourcesful. She is also brave and determined. Faced with multiple challenges, she rises to them and through her persistence and intelligence, sees something that the adults around her are failing to address. Olivia realises the weather has gone wrong and that she and her friends need to use the power of science to find out why…

Ravi is Olivia’s first friend at school. He is an energetic, self confident young person who is not afraid to express his identity in any way he choses. He is physically very agile and moves in a way which is intiuitve and untaught but very graceful. Ravi loves jewels and beautiful clothes and likes to accessorise his school uniform. He would love nothing more than to wear a tiara to school, unlike Olivia who is appalled at the thought. When they become friends, Olivia gives Ravi her princess tiara as a present.

Ravi lives with his Mum in a small appartment not far from where Olivia and her parents live in Alez City. He has become a vegan and is trying to live on vegetables grown in their balcony garden but he tells Olivia it is getting more difficult because the unpreditable weather keeps ruining their home grown crop. Ravi’s Mum works shifts and so is often unavailable to look after him but Ravi is street smart and knows how to look after himself on the dirty, gloomy streets of the capital city. He also adores his mother and wishes that he was like his friend Helga, who has two mothers.

Helga is the hothouse brilliant child of two mothers who are both deeply involved with the administration of the country of Alez. Her mother Gretchen, assistant to the new President, was involved in the dethroning of Olivia’s parents, a fact which remains unknown to the Oliviauntil later in the book. When Olivia first meets Helga, Helga is intent on displaying her knowledge in a school setting. Helga is at first very dismissive of Olivia as she thinks of her as a former princess and therefore as a tool of the oppresive former regime. Both Helga’s mothers work ceaselessly to try and create a better country for everyone – they are both involved with social justice and health and welfare.

But Helga is also very good friends with Ravi, a friendship which predates Olivia’s arrival at the school. Greatly to Helga’s credit, she is not at all jealous when Ravi befriends Olivia and tells Helga she should do so too. Instead, she shows her trademark curiosity and finds that she likes Olivia very much. She is also intrigued by Olivia’s determination to solve the problem of the wrong weather and thinks this is a very good challenge for her personally as her ambition is to be the President of Alez one day…

Olivia’s mother is a kind hearted woman whose royal status means she has led a very sheltered life. Because she has only ever lived in one royal palace or another, she has no idea at all about the outside world. Her only frame of reference is via royalty, therefore to her, the most important job she can do is to prepare her daughter to be first a princess, then a Queen and a ruler. Paragona’s priorities, her thoughts, her ideas are only ever related to royal status because she has never experienced anything else Olivia, who is a very different character to her mother, understands that her mother is what she would become if she never made her escape from the Palace in order to explore the world outside.

Paragona is obsessed with jewellery, in particular tiaras and crowns which she adores and cannot even begin to imagine why Olivia never wants to wear one. Paragona has a huge range of tiaras and crowns for different occasions, even a special one for wearing in the bath! When rudely removed from royal life, Paragona struggles to adapt. She still insists on calling the tiny appartment ‘The Royal Residence’ and sketches tiny crowns onto all the ordinary glassware and crockery that the family now use.

But Paragona is not a hopeless case. She is detemined to do her best for her daughter, even if their ideas clash. Despite her total lack of experience of housework and cookery, she gets on with what needs to be done in order to make a life for her family. And eventually, Paragona takes steps which surprise even Olivia! When Paragona finally discovers the internet, she spots a commercial opportunity for herself and sets herself up in business, selling ‘tiaras for all occasions, for the princess you really are’, something which proves wildly popular in the new republican version of the kingdom she used to rule.

King Tolemy the Thirty Second is Olivia’s father, a gentle, quiet man who always suspected that he wasn’t really a very good king. Lacking the dynamism of his twin brother Cassander, he has been creeping around the corridors of his own palace for sometime, wondering why he felt so sad all the time. Like his wife, Queen Paragona, Tolemy has no experience of life beyond his royal status until one day, the family lose everything and find themselves ejected via the front gate of the Palace.

Tolemy has for some time been quite burdened by the crown. He is a direct ancestor of Tolemy the First, a great warrior who led his people across the glacier on the border of what became the country of Alez to find freedom in a land which smelt of sweet milk and blossom. When Tolemy the First came across a flowering tree, he stuck his sword in the ground and declared this to be his kingdom. Tolemy the First named the tree the ‘Angel Tree’ and declared that while it flowered and thrived, Alez would too.

Unfortunately for Tolemy the Thirty Second, he has worried for some years that all is not well in the country he ruled but he didn’t know what to do about it so put such thoughts out of his mind. Or resolved to do something about them – but not until tomorrow. In the end, the choice is taken away from him when he is curtly told he is no longer to rule the country.

Left to his own devices in the tiny appartment in Alez City, Tolemy falls into depression but by the end of the story, he is helped by Olivia who has come to understand that feelings matter.

Cassander is Olivia’s favourite and only uncle. He is Tolemy’s twin brother but was born minutes after him. This meant that from birth, Cassander was seen as far less important than his brother who was destined to be King. A more rebellious, active and determined character than his brother, Cassander left the Palace and the Royal Family as a young adult when he decided to renounce his prince-ship and move to an island in the bay of Alez. Since then, Cassander has been surfing and repairing vintage motorbikes. Clever, practical and resourceful, Cassander is also a kind man. When his brother and family have to leave the Palace, Cassander makes one of his rare trips to the City to help them establish their new lives. He is also the touchstone for his neice Olivia and the only adult she feels she can rely on to tell her the truth.

Jeremy Pont is the new President of Alez. He was previously the Prime Minister under King Tolemy until he decided he could run the country better himself. Organised, ruthless and ambitious, Jeremy manages to get the royal family out of the Palace only to inhabit it himself and start displaying the same kind of tendencies as the former inhabitants. Jeremy Pont has also worked out ways to make Alez far more profitable and his schemes have been highly successful, to the point where the money was flowing into the coffers of the country. Jeremy also wants to grab this money for himself although he claims he is doing it for the good of the country.

Activities

If you love the book, there are some exciting activities you can download to do at home. 

Read more of Lucy’s books …

George and the Ship of Time
George's Secret Key to the Universe
Princess Olivia Investigates the Wrong Weather
Princess Olivia Investigates the Sea of Plastic