Heir Apparent is a science fiction/fantasy novel by young adult fiction author Vivian Vande Velde, about a girl who becomes trapped inside a looping virtual reality role-playing game called Heir Apparent. The same girl appeared as a secondary character in User Unfriendly, Vande Velde's earlier book about a game from the same fictional company, Rasmussem, Inc. She later wrote a third book about this company, Deadly Pink. She does not consider the second or third book sequels, despite their taking place in the same universe as the first one, and she says the three books can be read in any order. Vande Velde says, "Heir Apparent was a lot of fun to write because it's about a girl caught in a virtual-reality-type game. Even though Giannine finds herself in a vaguely medieval world, I didn't have to worry about historical accuracy. I also was able to keep throwing all sorts of things at her -- a dragon, an army of ghosts, and a poetry-loving/head-chopping statue." Plot summary Beginning Giannine receives a gift certificate for a Rasmussem Gaming Center as a birthday present from her father. When she arrives at the local center, a crowd from "CPOC," the "Citizens to Protect Our Children," has come for a demonstration against such games. She enters the arcade and gets hooked up to Heir Apparent, a single-player RPG. Giannine's character, Janine de St. Jehan, is the illegitimate child of the recently deceased King Cynric, who pronounced her heir to the throne, passing over three legitimate sons. Her task is to survive the three days (which will only last thirty minutes in the real world) before her coronation. Anytime her character dies, she will be sent back to the beginning of the game. The game Janine finds herself on a sheep farm, where she meets her foster mother and Sir Deming, who delivers the news of her ascendancy to the throne. Ignoring her foster mother's advice to say goodbye to her foster father, Janine heads off to the castle. There she meets Queen Andreanna and her three sons, Abas, Wulfgar, and Kenric. Outside the throne room, the guards bring before Janine a boy caught poaching deer. They expect her to order the boy's execution, but instead she lets the boy go. Nigel Rasmussem briefly enters the game to inform her that CPOC broke into the arcade and damaged the equipment. She cannot exit the game