With the Royal Wedding fast approaching, we can't wait to bring you some fantastic wedding-themed reads over the next couple of months (with a few princes thrown in for good measure!). One title we're particularly looking forward to is The Golden Prince by Rebecca Dean. Despite not having the same happy ending that's destined for Prince William and Kate Middleton, the book - which has been shortlisted for both the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year and Historical Novel of the Year awards - tells a different kind of Royal love story...Edward VIII became notorious for abandoning the throne for Mrs Simpson, but in the summer of 1911 he was a prince straight from the pages of a fairy-tale. Raised by the harsh disciplinarian King George V and his unfeeling Queen Mary, the prince longed for the warmth that had been deprived of him.
The high society Houghton girls' lives however, were full of fun, both at their magnificent family seat Snowberry, and at the whirlwind of glamorous parties which punctuated their lives. When a moment of serendipity brings Edward and Lily Houghton together, the pressures of a stuffy court are replaced with the lightness that Edward has dreamt of.
But a future monarch could not choose his own Queen, and even an enduring love might falter under the furious gaze of a King. Could the devotion of Edward and Lily triumph against him and the impending doom of World War I? Or would they bow to the inevitable and set in train events that could bring down the Crown, and change the course of history forever?
