Book Review: Before the Crown by Flora Harding
I have a confession: I am not a monarchist – at all. #voteonerepulbicforAustralia I don’t dislike the Queen and the royals, I just don’t see their point or relevance for Australia and our modern values. So, with that in mind, I have to say… Harding must be basically a genius because I LOVED this book.
You might be wondering why I wanted to read this book then. Well, another confession is that I picked it because of its gorgeous cover. I mean, seriously, that’s a great cover.
The plot is obvious. Young princess Elizabeth, heir to the throne of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth dominion, falls for Prince Philip of Greece. Philip is a bit of a wild child with enough controversies within his family to send her dad, King George VI, into a frenzy. Despite knowing the outcome (Liz and Phil have been married for 73 years now, after all), I couldn’t stop turning the pages, so engrossed was I with this story.
I must say that Harding wrote the book in a very respectful way. In particular, I think she wrote Philip well. Over the years he’s been accused of a lot of things and said a lot of things which most consider inappropriate. Harding seemed to show this side of his character but in an empathetic way which made him a very likeable ‘character’. I did learn a lot about Philip’s early life (no, I haven’t watched more than a handful of eppies of The Crown yet either) and although it’s technically a piece of fiction, there must have still been a lot of research and fact checking involved in writing this book.
On that point, even though I was horrified that I was relishing a romance about two people who are still alive, I did like the way I could quickly google anything which came up in the novel, thus adding an extra layer of enjoyment. I couldn’t help but notice when I googled various images, Elizabeth and Philip always looked like they were smiling and laughing together in every photo. Up until now, I have never considered Elizabeth and Philip a particularly romantic pairing, despite their marriage’s longevity, but Harding even made me change my mind about this.
Doing a bit more googling, I found that Flora Harding is a pseudonym and she also writes as Jessica Hart and Pamela Harshorne. I’ll definitely be checking out some other of her titles.
All in all, if a big pro-Republic chick like me can love Before the Crown, it’s got to be a high recommendation. 4 1/2 out of 5
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