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The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor - the Truth and the Turmoil
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About This Book
The gripping inside story of the British royal family's battle to overcome the dramas of the Diana years—only to confront new, twenty-first-century crises "Never again" became Queen Elizabeth II's mantra shortly after Princess Diana's tragic death. More specifically, there could never be "another Diana"—a member of the family whose global popularity upstaged, outshone, and posed an existential threat to the British monarchy. Picking up where Tina Brown's masterful The Diana Chronicles left off, The Palace Papers reveals how the royal family reinvented itself after the traumatic years when Diana's blazing celebrity ripped through the House of Windsor like a comet. Brown takes readers on a tour de force journey through the scandals, love affairs, power plays, and betrayals that have buffeted the monarchy over the last twenty-five years. We see the Queen's stoic resolve after the passing of Princess Margaret, the Queen Mother, and Prince Philip, her partner for seven decades, and how she triumphs in her Jubilee years even as family troubles rage around her. Brown explores Prince Charles's determination to make Camilla Parker Bowles his wife, the tension between William and Harry on "different paths," the ascendance of Kate Middleton, the downfall of Prince Andrew, and Harry and Meghan's stunning decision to step back as senior royals. Despite the fragile monarchy's best efforts, "never again" seems fast approaching. Tina Brown has been observing and chronicling the British monarchy for three decades, and her sweeping account is full of powerful revelations, newly reported details, and searing insight gleaned from remarkable access to royal insiders. Stylish, witty, and erudite, The Palace Papers will irrevocably change how the world perceives and understands the royal family.
Reviews
"How fun a chapter is depends on how badly the royals are behaving, which makes anything before 2010 dull."
"Featuring a combination of preexisting press accounts and Brown's own reporting, it's high-minded and gossipy, and addictively readable, despite a slow first half spent revisiting the well-trod history of the Diana Years."
"Royal watchers won't be much fazed by the new material, and all the 'I am told's in the world can't match the thrill of a devastating on-the-record scoop."
"But perhaps so much has been written about the monarchy that there is little new to add, particularly about the past three years."
"[Brown is] pretty much sticking to the script of the palace's current PR strategy, which has cut the deadwood adrift and focused the spotlight entirely on the Queen and the Cambridges ..."
"entertaining and illuminating, but not tawdry, even as [Brown] deals with all kinds of tawdry actions ..."
"It's frothy and forthright, a kind of Keeping Up With the Windsors with sprinkles of Keats, and like its predecessor will probably float right up the charts."
"Brown is quite inexhaustible."
"If some of the revelations are inevitably a little stale, all are richly seasoned."
"The Palace Papers is clever, well-informed and disgustingly entertaining."
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