Princess Izzy and the E Street Shuffle

With more twists and turns than a spiral staircase, this mostly silly, occasionally clever debut dresses up chick lit conventions with aristocratic titles and predicaments. Borrowing heavily from the lives of the British royals, Bartlett invents a modern-day prince and princess living in the fictional country of Bisbania. Prince Raphael makes the political error of marrying a woman he truly loves, his childhood friend Isabella Cordage. As soon as their engagement is announced, Isabella becomes gossip-page fodder—the media nickname her "Dizzy Izzy" for a spill she took down the castle staircase. In an attempt to protect her image, Princess Isabella turns for advice to Geoffrey Whitehall-Wright, an American, Yale-educated auto mechanic whom she met (and flirted with) while they were undergraduates together. In a belabored plot device, Geoffrey doles out advice in the form of Bruce Springsteen lyrics that Princess Isabella interprets as fashion tips. This fairy tale might offer some escapism for the teenybopper set partial to the Princess Diaries movies. (Mar.)