📖 Hist Fic Saturday ~ The People's Princess by Flora Harding

 

On Hist Fic Saturday

Lets go back to...1981

One More Chapter
31 March 2022

Thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

Buckingham Palace, 1981

Her engagement to Prince Charles is a dream come true for Lady Diana Spencer but marrying the heir to the throne is not all that it seems. Alone and bored in the palace, she resents the stuffy courtiers who are intent on instructing her about her new role as Princess of Wales…

But when she discovers a diary written in the 1800s by Princess Charlotte of Wales, a young woman born into a gilded cage so like herself, Diana is drawn into the story of Charlotte’s reckless love affairs and fraught relationship with her father, the Prince Regent.

As she reads the diary, Diana can see many parallels with her own life and future as Princess of Wales.

The story allows a behind-the-scenes glimpse of life in the palace, the tensions in Diana’s relationship with the royal family during the engagement, and the wedding itself.

📖 My Review...

It still takes me by surprise to realise that the era of the Princess of Wales is now being written about in historical fiction but then the fascination we have for Diana will never go away. You only have to look at the popular TV dramas, and movies, which continue to speculate about Diana, Princess of Wales.

The People's Princess brings Diana Spencer to life in 1981, just after her engagement to Prince Charles, when she is a lost and lonely figure rattling around the great empty space of Buckingham Palace. Desperate to alleviate her boredom, Diana is intrigued by a portrait she sees on a corridor in Buckingham Palace and wants to know more about Princess Charlotte of Wales, another tragic princess who died at a young age. Intertwining Diana's story as she awaits her wedding with that of Princess Charlotte adds a nice dual time element to the story.

I enjoyed the story, it's a light and easy read, with well researched historical detail to keep alive the authenticity of the story. The author captures well the mood of both historical periods and brings these two tragic, and charismatic, young women to life.

🍜Best Read with...a bowl of cornflakes..

About the Author

Flora Harding began writing over 30 years ago to fund a PhD on the disposal of waste in Elizabethan York, and has juggled fact and fiction ever since. Under various pseudonyms she has written more than 75 novels, histories and other forms of non-fiction and continues to be fascinated by the relationship between the past and the present, whatever she happens to be writing. Flora still lives in York with the city walls and the Minster at the end of her street, and is a freelance project editor as well as an author. Much as she loves the historic city, she yearns too for open horizons, and is a keen walker, preferably in wild, open spaces.

Twitter @AuthorFlora

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