A trio of real-life personages followed by fictional characters who illumine a dramatic period of British history – the abdication of King Edward VI – make up this month’s selection of historical fiction.
We begin with THE GOLDEN PRINCE by Rebecca Dean. Seventeen-year-old Prince Edward is already chafing at the stifling role he’s being pressed into, feeling unloved by the disciplinarian father he can never please and his cool and unsympathetic mother. When a car accident makes him an unexpected house guest at Snowberry Manor, he is brought into the “ordinary,” less complicated world of the Houghton sisters, granddaughters of Lord May of Snowberry. Free for once to just be himself, he’s particularly drawn to Lilly, the talented and artistic youngest daughter, who is equally drawn to him. Soon the two fall headlong into love. Dean adds layers to her story by including the lives of Lilly’s sisters: Rose, the suffragette and journalist who wants to avoid romantic entanglements; Marigold, a “fast” girl interested in men, parties and high society, and Iris, who longs only for a home and family of her own with the man she loves. But much as Lilly brings out the best in Edward, can a peer’s granddaughter be considered a suitable match for a future king? With its plausible plot, full cast of historical characters and rich detail about the changes taking place in pre-World-I British society, Dean’s novel offers a tantalizing glimpse of what-might-have-been.
We move on to a later phase of Edward’s life through the eyes of THE WOMAN BEFORE WALLIS by Bryn Turnbull. Thelma Morgan, twin sister of Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, is no stranger to the rich and famous when she encounters the widowed Viscount Duke Furness in the summer of 1926. Married after a whirlwind romance, she’s suddenly elevated into the upper tier of British aristocracy, where she meets the charming Edward, Prince of Wales. Edward finds her as fascinating as she finds him, and with her straying husband often occupied by affairs of his own, the two spend more and more time together, until Thelma becomes Edward’s mistress. But when the widowed Gloria becomes locked in a vicious custody battle for control of her small daughter, “Little Gloria,” (Anderson Cooper’s mother,) Thelma feels obligated to return to the U.S. and stand by her beleaguered sister. She leaves England unaware that in turning her royal lover over to Wallis Simpson to entertain in her absence, and with the possibility that her sister’s scandal could taint the royal name, she has just doomed her love affair. Turnbull’s novel gives us a rich and interesting portrait of a little-known woman who unwittingly paved the way to abdication.
“That Woman” herself tells her side of the story in THE DUCHESS: A NOVEL OF WALLIS SIMPSON by Wendy Holden. The novel presents a much more sympathetic portrait of Wallis as a woman captivated by the wealth and mystique of a prince who indulges herself in the luxury and attention he offers, fully expecting the affair will eventually end when he becomes king and fulfills his duty to marry a princess. Details about Wallis’s teetering-on-the-edge of poverty childhood as the scion of a once-powerful family who no longer possesses its former wealth and the abuse she suffered during her first marriage add texture to the favorable portrayal, while the premise that Edward stubbornly refused to give her up because he never wanted to be king and she was his way out is a novel if implausible bit of speculation. That Wallis felt “pressed” into marrying the Duke after he gave up his throne on her account also seems far-fetched, as abundant contemporary accounts testify to her enjoyment of her role as duchess. Though she may not have been quite the vicious femme fatale the Queen Mother hated, recently-published correspondence between Wallis and Edward only underscores the truth of the standard version of the abdication: that Wallis encouraged Edward in his pursuit and his self-centered, life-long resentment and disdain for the royal family. Still, this fresh approach to an often-maligned historical figure is entertainingly thought-provoking.
Our final selection, ABDICATION by Judith Nicolson, presents the story through the eyes of several real and fictional protagonists who become caught up in the royal drama. May Thomas travels with her brother from their native Barbados to live with cousins in England and finds employment as a secretary and driver to Sir Phillip Blunt, whose wife Lady Joan is also hosting her goddaughter from America, Evangeline Netterfold. “Vangie” is an old school friend of Wallis Simpson’s, whom Wallis asked to come act as her companion when Wallis’s aunt cannot. Also on the scene is Julian Richardson, a good friend of the family’s son, who finds May very attractive. As an MP, Sir Phillip is drawn into the crisis over David and Wallis, while as Wallis’s companion, Vangie has an inside view from the royal couple’s perspective. The family’s association with many notable figures of the day, including the Mitford sisters, Duff and Diana Cooper, and Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosby, creates a richly textured backdrop of Britain before the war—where the rise of Hitler’s Germany, the Spanish Civil War and growing totalitarianism abroad provide a counterpoint to the main drama of David and Wallis. Although the end of that drama isn’t in question, Nicholson‘s novel entertains and illumines as she leads you toward that foregone conclusion.
Ready to immerse yourself in royal intrigue? This month’s selection gives you several avenues to that end!
About Julia Justiss
Real, intense, passionate historical romance
Award-winning romance author Julia Justiss, who has written more than thirty historical novels and novellas set in the English Regency and the American West, just completed her first contemporary series set in the fictional Hill Country town of Whiskey River, Texas.
A voracious reader who began jotting down plot ideas for Nancy Drew novels in her third grade spiral, Julia has published poetry and worked as a business journalist.
She and her husband live in East Texas, where she continues to craft the stories she loves. Check her website for details about her books, chat with her on social media, and follow her on Bookbub and Amazon to receive notices about her latest releases.
Regency Silk & Scandal | Hadley’s Hellions | Ransleigh Rogues | Whiskey River Christmas | Sisters of Scandal | Wellingfords | Cinderella Spinsters | Heirs in Waiting | The McAllister Brothers
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