YA novel about a girl who is transported to another world and plays chess

Question

I'm looking for a novel that I read in the early 2000s, about a normal girl who is transported into a magic kingdom.

Chess is a big part of this world, and it's somehow tied to magic. The girl has to go through trials and adventures in a court, and defeats the villain in the end with a chessboard. I believe at the end of the story, she's also able to travel back and forth between the real world and the magic one.

I think it was a standalone book at that point, but I am unsure if there are any sequels since then.

Answer 1

Might this be The Princess Pawn (2003) by Maggie L. Wood? (Note that both Amazon and Goodreads give this a 2003/09/25 release date instead of ISFDb's March 2004.)

Quoting from the book's summary on Goodreads:

Willow Kingswell thinks of herself as an ordinary fourteen-year-old. Although she has been hearing her grandmother's stories about the enchanted realm of Mistolear for as long as she can remember, being a princess is the furthest thing from her mind. What's worrying Willow these days is finding a way to get accepted by the in-crowd at her high school without betraying her friend Abby. Suddenly, Willow finds herself magically transported to the real Mistolear, where it turns out she actually does have a large family--and a royal one at that. Willow's courage and intellect are put to the test as she attempts to save the kingdom from a terrifying spell that turns people into chess pieces. Willow must decide the right course of action before the spell that threatens her newfound family takes away all her choices.