I was lucky enough to be selected to take part in ‘The Duchess Readalong’ with Tandem Collective UK, and they kindly gifted me a copy of the book by Wendy Holden too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am always a little cautious of historical fiction, as I have known people to read it and take it as fact. However, ‘The Duchess’ had me hooked, especially as I do have quite a fascination with Wallis Simpson and her impact on the royal family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a beautifully written book. Totally absorbing. And fascinating as this is really about Mrs Simpson before she became ‘the woman who stole our king’. If she ever actually was – the story will certainly have you questioning that popular culture view of her. This novel presents a very sympathetic view of Wallis Simpson, and I think that is what keeps you reading as you realise what a complex character she actually was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can also not read this book without falling down a ‘royal rabbit hole’. I was keen to find out more about so many of the figures of this book. And, as I was doing this, it was convincing me that Wendy Holden had certainly done her research to write this book – and the narrative throughout this novel also supports this, as this is not written to over-dramatise any of the events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I reallt enjoyed this book and feel very lucky to have had the chance to read it. I am certainly keen now to read ‘The Governess’, as – let’s be honest – the British royal family is an institution that is full of stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was lucky enough to be selected to take part in ‘The Duchess Readalong’ with Tandem Collective UK, and they kindly gifted me a copy of the book by Wendy Holden too. I am always a little cautious of historical fiction, as I have known people to read it and take it as fact. However, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[692,130,624,622,802,803],"class_list":["post-1396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-a-year-in-books-2021","tag-historical-fiction","tag-readalong","tag-tandem-collective","tag-the-duchess","tag-wendy-holden"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8jrc7-mw","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1397,"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions\/1397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}