Lovers of The Crown will adore this! - Susan Meissner, bestselling author of The Last Year of the WarĪ moving, gorgeously written page-turner. The Royal Governess is a fabulous read for not only devotees of period fiction and the British Royals, but anyone with a hunger for a well-crafted tale. Wendy Holden absolutely delivers in this perfect blend of story and history. A delightful read!Ĭhanel Cleeton, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Train to Key West Through her eyes, the reader is transported back in time and thoroughly immersed in the lives of the British royal family. Marion Crawford's dedication to her charges, as well as her passion for education and reform, shines through the pages.

In this majestic story of love, sacrifice and allegiance, bestselling novelist Holden shines a captivating light into the years before Queen Elizabeth II took the throne.Īn intimate view of the royal family at a time of great uncertainty and change, The Royal Governess is a beautifully written and richly detailed piece of historical fiction. Marriage, children, her own views: all are compromised by proximity to royal glory. But being beloved confidante to the Windsors comes at huge personal cost. Afterwards, she is present when Elizabeth first sets eyes on Philip. During Britain’s darkest hour, as Hitler’s planes fly over Windsor, she shelters her charges in the castle dungeons (not far from where the Crown Jewels are hidden in a biscuit tin). She steers the little girls through it all, as close as a mother. The trauma of the Abdication, the glamour of the Coronation, the onset of World War II. From her ringside seat at the heart of the British monarchy she witnesses twentieth-century history’s most seismic events. At Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Balmoral, Marion defies stuffy protocol to take the princesses on tube trains, swimming at public baths, and on joyful Christmas shopping trips at Woolworth’s. Her one stipulation to their parents the Duke and Duchess of York is that she bring some doses of normalcy into their sheltered and privileged lives. In 1933, twenty-two-year-old Marion Crawford accepts the role of a lifetime, tutoring the little Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. In ' a beautifully woven and exquisitely detailed story of strong upstairs/downstairs women” (Heather Morris, New York Times bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz) Sunday Times bestselling author Wendy Holden brings to life the unknown childhood years of one of the world’s most famous figures, Queen Elizabeth II, and reveals the spirited young governess who made her the icon we love today.

The royal governess