The Golden Prince

Edward & Wallis #1

by Rebecca Dean

An irresistible tale of scandal and star-crossed love
 
It’s 1912, and seventeen-year-old Prince Edward, England’s Golden Prince of Wales, is feeling the burden of his position. As heir to the greatest throne in the world, he hates the constrictions and superficial demands of his royal life. His father, King George, is a harsh disciplinarian, and his mother, Queen Mary, is reserved and cold. Other than his siblings, he has no friends and despairs at his isolation and loneliness.  

However, when unexpected circumstances bring him to Snowberry Manor, home of the four Houghton sisters, his life suddenly seems more interesting. As he secretly spends more time with Lily, the youngest of the girls, he finds himself falling hopelessly in love.    

But Lily is not royal, and a thousand years of precedent insist that future Queens of England are of royal blood. Worse, King George reveals he already has a princess in line for Edward to marry. Will the strength of their love be enough or will destiny tear them apart? 

Grounded in rich historical detail and research and brimming with delicious drama and the sweet promise of first love, The Golden Prince is a wildly entertaining novel that will mesmerize readers and leave them begging for more.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical, Fiction, Romance, British Literature, Historical Romance, Adult

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Margaret A. Hudson was born on 10 April 1943 in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, UK, of German extraction. She was daughter of Kathleen (Ramsden), an artist, and George Arthur Hudson, an architect. Married with Londoner Mike Pemberton, they have five grown children, today she lives with her husband and four small dogs in Whitstable, Kent. Apart from writing, her passions are tango, travel, English history and the English countryside.

Published since 1975, she is a bestselling romance writer as Margaret Pemberton, and under the pseudonyms Carris Carlisle, Maggie Hudson and Rebecca Dean. Having travelled extensively, her novels are set in different parts of the world. She was the fifteenth elected Chairman of the Romantic Novelists' Association (1989-1991), she has also served on the Crime Writers' Association Committee.

Reviews

[Jen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. I typically enjoy historical fiction and have a special soft spot for books about royals. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into this book at all. While the premise is intriguing and the author's writing style decent, the author never develops her characters. The character of David is boring and not particularly like-able. I thought that perhaps this book would give me a more sympathetic view of this historical figure, but sadly it did not. The character of David is presented as immature, flighty and incredibly naive. He wants what he wants and doesn't care about the consequences. While I suppose this can be excused in a teenage boy, it hardly makes for a strong romantic hero. Even worse than the character of David however is the female heroine, Lily. Lily is initially described as very beautiful, somewhat naive and incredibly 'sweet'. End of character development. And yet somehow every male character who meets her falls desperately in love with her because she is so 'sweet'. She expresses no original opinions and her only interests are art and bunnies. The book's true saving grace is the secondary characters, who really steal the show. Lily's sisters, Rose, Iris and Marigold are interesting women, all different, but each with opinions and a tantalizingly described history. I was disappointed whenever the story left these characters to return to the naive prince and his insipid love interest. Had this book been about Marigold or Rose it probably would have gotten 4 stars from me.

[Barb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edward VIII was Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India. He was always known to his family and close friends by his last given name, David.

Only months into his reign, Edward caused a constitutional crisis by proposing marriage to the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. The prime ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominions opposed the marriage. Rather than give up Mrs. Simpson, Edward chose to abdicate. He was succeeded by his younger brother Albert, who chose the regnal name George VI. With a reign of 325 days, Edward is one of the shortest-reigning monarchs in British and Commonwealth history, and was never crowned.

I enjoyed this novel about Edward VIII. I recently read Anne Edwards' 'Wallis: the Novel' which is in part about Edward VIII but it's focus was more on Wallis Simpson as the title suggests. When I saw that Rebecca Dean had a novel coming out on Edward VIII I was thrilled to pick it off the Vine.

I was hoping to get a better understanding of David the person versus Edward VIII the royal and I do feel I came away from this book with a better idea of what David's life might have been like as a young man. I enjoyed the intrigues of the other characters, they certainly made for entertaining reading but I wish the author had focused more attention on the Prince of Wales and his relationship with his parents King George and Queen Mary.

I also wish the author had included a historical note to tell the reader which things were imagined and which were based in fact. Was there a Houghton family that the prince knew? Was Lily Houghton an actual person or was she made up of whole cloth?

I would love to continue reading about Edward VIII, if you know of another novel based on his life please let me know by posting a comment. Thank you.

[Margie · Rating 1 out of 5]

What's that old saying about putting X number of chimps in front of typewriters and eventually you would come up with Great Expectations, or something? Well, I think that's how the world ended up with this book. What a load of twaddle. I listened to the audio book and the soupy writing was exacerbated by a narrator who, though mellifluous of tone, mispronounced every second word. She even pronounced "says" to rhyme with "days", which sounds very strange coming out of George V's mouth. Marquise is pronounced mark-WISSSSS, tsarevich as saverich, the list goes on and on. When she uttered the name of the Guerlain fragrance L'heure Bleu it sounded like she was throwing up. But then, the dialogue between the 17 year old David and 15 year old Lily made me want to throw up, I can tell you. The book is also littered with drunken-uncle-style knowing winks to the future. However, it's worth sticking around until the end because Dean even throws in a Titanic tangent. In all, it's one Audible credit I'd like back. I'd like to find the reviewer who likened this to Philippa Gregory and give them a piece of my mind. It makes the later Barbara Cartland novels seem like Kafka. I didn't like it very much, can you tell?

[Gail · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry to say I didn't like her writing style of telling me how to feel about the characters rather than showing. Following Nancy Pearl's advice on giving it 100 pages, I wanted to like it, but the characters, ugh, nevermind. Someone said in her review that the main character did not warrant a novel, and I agree. I felt like the author couldn't decide if she wanted it to be historical fiction or chick lit. Sorry to be harsh but there it is.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great premise...Prince Edward falling in love at age 17 with a commoner and proposing marriage, only to have King George refuse. A fictional account obviously, but seemed to set the stage for real events that did happen when Prince Edward became king after King George's death, only to abdicate before his official coranation less than a year later when he opted to marry the American divorcee, Wallis Simpson. Rebecca Dean's writing, however, leave a lot to be desired. Her sentence structure was off, and her lack of imagination and word choice was very unappealing. I wasted a good week of beach time reading on this book. Before I was even half way through, I kept sneaking reads from my husbands book of choice: George W. Bush, Decision Book (which is EXCELLENT, by the way...)

[Sunny Jun · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historically semi-accurate, enjoyed the precision within the star-crossed romance trope

Very underrated.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Review: Rebecca Dean is a pen-name of best-selling novelist Margaret Pemberton. She is the author of A Dangerous Desire and countless other novels under her real name Margaret Pemberton. This is the first novel I have read by Rebecca Dean/ Margaret Pemberton and I can easily say I hope it won’t be my last!

The Golden Prince is a story about Prince Edward “David,” who did not have a normal childhood. He was the royal Prince of Wales who never had a moment to himself. Every second of everyday was planned out for him and he was never allowed to make friends outside of his royal family. His father, King George V, was so hard on him to where David grew to fear him. David had no desire to succeed his father as King of England. His heart’s true desire was to just be normal and have a life as far away from the royal court as possible.

But once Lilly Houghton comes into his life, David realizes that with her by his side encouraging him, he could be a far better king than his traditionalist father, King George V. However, once David confronts his father about wanting to marry someone that wasn’t royal, King George nearly comes unglued and finds every possible way to keep David from Lilly by sending him off to intern on a naval battleship, France, and then off to Oxford for three years. Will King George V abandoned his traditional values by giving in to his son’s one true desire or will David have to choose between Lilly the love of his life or his birthright as the heir to the greatest kingdom in Europe?

Opinion: I actually enjoyed this book a lot more than I originally thought I would. I agreed to review The Golden Prince because of the upcoming royal wedding and also because of The King’s Speech. 20th century European history is completely foreign to me since my historical interests lie between the 16th and 19th centuries. I found this book to be very intriguing and romantic. Prince Edward and Lilly’s romance really pulled at my heart strings, because I know what it’s like to be in love with someone who has been deemed forbidden by your family. I highly recommend this one!

To read more of my reviews visit my Historical Fiction site: http://allthingshistoricalfiction.blo...

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok so this was a tough one for me. It started off really good. It was entertaining and was well written. I found myself about 3/4's of the way through and starting to think..."how is this all going to end in a believable way?". Here are my issues, the story is based on a real historical figure who we know quite a lot about and a fictional girl named Lily. The basis of the story is this, how will Prince Edward and Lily manage to be together when David (Prince Edward) is a Royal and as such can only marry a Royal (Lily is well born, but not royal) . It made all their declarations of love etc hopeless in my mind because we all know that he ends up abdicating to marry Wallis Simpson who he was wildly in love with! So we know that they will never be together.

Another thing that bothered me was that closer to the end all these sub-plots were written in, and they were big deals! Like Marigold almost voyaging on the Titanic (after a quick one page meeting with an American...) and then getting a marriage proposal in the last min. before departure that make her get off.... This could be a very interesting story all in it's own and it seemed that so much of it was brushed over. And Rose being a part of the suffragette movement and meeting a man (which in one page she vows she can't date, to the next page she is walking arm and arm with him happy that they will be married). This sort of writing always has me rolling my eye's because it just cheapens the main story, and is not realistic in any way.

Usually I am a huge fan of historical novel's that shed a bit of light onto characters from the past, but only if they stick to historical fact. (Eg: Philipa Gregory)

I feel like this was written by two different people. The first part of the book had lots of potential, the last part 'tanked' in my opinion! I was really disappointed because I loved her first book 'Palace Circle'.

Anyways.... that's my thoughts.

[Shadoshard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad as a historical romance goes, but in this book, it was the peripheral characters that shone, rather than the featured heroine/hero. David and Lily are both too young, too much of a cliche to find interesting or to really feel much for. But her sisters Marigold, Rose and Iris were worth the read. So were her cousin Rory and even Capt. Cullen (incel that he was) were pretty interesting. The writing flowed well and the themes were interesting, weaving well between the romance, the subject of English suffragettes and the intractability of the King who ignored it all. Over all, it was an easy romp of a book.

[Rosemary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually liked this book more than I thought I would. The storyline was interesting and there were various sub-plots and enough characters to move the narrative along. It really made the scenario "what if David had been allowed to follow his heart" very believable. I realize this is fictional, but does have some grains of truth in it. The monarchy might've taken a completely different turn if King George V wasn't such a hard ass. And fast forward 70 years-Prince Charles got similarly treated.

[Nesta Newman · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF'd at 250 pages. This really wasn't the book for me - I realised I wouldn't like it fairly early on, but it was still enjoyable in a 'so bad it's good kind of way'. Then it just became horrifically dull. Also remembered just after reading it that Edward VIII was a Nazi sympathiser, and nope, I cannot make myself care about someone like that. Maybe if it had just focused on Rose being a suffragette, then I would have been more interested. But the characters were shallow, the romance was insipid, and the reader incredibly bored.

[MaryannC Victorian Dreamer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this "what-if" novel of The Prince of Wales and his secret love with a commoner.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm done at page 77. Too many good books in the world to force yourself to continue on with one that is not enjoyable.

[Nell · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn't see the point when Edward abandoning the throne for an "unsuitable" woman did actually happen.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

After noting the many 1- and 2-star reviews below, I assumed I wouldn't like this book but read it anyway. I was pleasantly surprised. It is in no way a bio of Edward VIII, though it did include a lot of interesting information about his ancestors and lineage. It was really more of a book about four sisters, and Edward/David happened to fall in love with one of them. Of the men involved in the Houghtons' lives, he was by far the most important, but all of their stories were interesting and I was glad they were all given time to develop.
I for one was glad the story had a relatively happy ending. I was glad Rose found Theo and he was able to stop Marigold from staying on the Titanic; I was glad Iris got what she wanted (at least for the length of the book); I was glad Lily did not destroy the bust of David, as I was afraid she might; I was glad Hal caught Rose before she left the party. Of course, these people were all works of fiction, but I was still glad the author didn't feel that she had to destroy one of them. Although if Piers had run his car off of a cliff, it would have been ok.

[Gayle (OutsmartYourShelf) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fictional look at the early years of the future (albeit briefly) King Edward VIII. I mainly read this as it is the prequel to 'The Shadow Queen' about Wallis Simpson. It was ok, however, the most interesting Houghton sister, Rose, and her suffragette connections etc was featured the least which I think was a mistake. More of Rose and less Marigold would have bumped this up to a 4 star.

[Marisol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such beautifully written prose! I gather the historical facts aren’t fully present in this novel, but it is after all a work of fiction. As sad as the ending is, I can appreciate how the author left it all on a positive note. I fell in love with David’s persistence and Rose’s determination. I even developed a soft spot for Theo, adulterer that he was!

[Louise Freeman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This felt like the longest book , I've ever read , while I did enjoy the jist of the story , I got bored with how long it took to get to parts , and the many different view points which was sometimes confusing and so many of them, after reading half the book , I got through the other half by skim reading which I was still managed to get the point of the book.

[Brie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book more than I thought I would, since I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction, and even less so when set in this time period. However, I enjoyed the story, although I thought the ending was rushed and a bit less than satisfactory. Issues with the ending aside, the writing was nice and the characters well developed.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novel based on fact of King Edward VII as a young man and his 1st love. His intense dislike of his princely duties found him involved with a non-royal, which of course isn't allowed. In real life, he would later open a hospital extension in her honor. Queen Elizabeth II's Uncle would later go on to be King for 1 year before his abdication to marry the divorcee Wallace Simpson.

[Debbi · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars A totally fictional story of Prince Edward as a young man in love with a girl his family would never approve of. Takes place in 1912 just before the Prince's seventeen's birthday. Entertaining but why take a real person from history and make up a love story about him? The sequel is the story of Wallis and so might be a better read.

[Susan Dempsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very absorbing.

Knowing who "David" was in real history made this story more poignant. In the end, the real David gave up his throne for an American divorcee, Wallis Warfield Simpson.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the history woven into the story. Rather romantic view of the prince.

[Marion Aranjo · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book. I find Prince Edward very fascinating and didn't know about this part of his life. Cannot wait to read the next one!

[Sarah Oliver]

Enjoyed.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't really sure how I felt about this book. I did not have a favorite character - I think they all had some issue that did not make them endearing.

[Alie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very slow but the last 100 pages make up for it. The ending is a sad but realistic one.

[Sydney Langille · Rating 4 out of 5]

This what good but the last 100 pages were the best

[Judy & Marianne from Long and Short Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Young love, first love, love that’s oblivious to all obstacles enfolds Prince Edward (known as David to friends and family) and Lily and creates euphoria for them. They ignore the encroaching ‘grownup’ world with its rules, social mores, and responsibilities. Outmaneuvering constrictions like playful children escaping from their nanny, the two teenagers share the joy of true friendship then the special excitement of that consuming, first sexual awareness that is uniquely theirs.

The Golden Prince, while not the usual happy-ever-after love story, is a story that reveals a love that is willing to give up much to insure the future happiness of the loved one. The love David and Lily share makes the heart sing. The inner strength and courage it engenders is memorable.

In 1911, young David, soon to be the new Prince of Wales, did not enjoy the freedoms the 2011 Prince of Wales enjoys, but when the opportunity to shed his ‘royal image’ for a short time presents itself, he jumps at the chance. The four Houghton girls, granddaughters of Lord May of Snowberry are unaware of his royal station in life when they invite him into their ordinary world, giving him friendship with no strings attached. He can be himself without constraints. It is a special rite of passage time for the young prince.

Lily, the youngest of the girls, is a magical, sparkling beauty with a joy for life. She steals his heart, encourages him to be the best he can be, and loves him with all her young heart, even after she learns his true identity. A talented sculptor, Lily lives in her own artistic world much of the time, loved and protected by her family that is uneasy about her connection with the young man who will someday be king.

The secondary characters are many in this novel that touches on political, social issues and mores of early twentieth-century England. Lily’s three sisters are influential forces. Rose, the oldest is a suffragette and journalist that has no interest in men she says, but Hal Green, a reporter on Fleet Street, gives her an opportunity to write for the newspaper and accepts her for who she is. He gets her attention. Marigold, the sister that David’s equerry Pier Cullen calls “fast”, likes older men, prestige, attention, and high society. She hides her hurts well, but feels deeply. Iris, the other sister, longs for a husband and family with a home of her own and wants them with Toby Mulholland, her first and only love.

Rory, the cousin from Scotland that is more like a brother than cousin, plays a unique role in the scheme of things while all the time keeping his own council.

The girls and their struggle to find their place in the world is ‘a-walk-in-the-park’ compared to David’s life. Decisions about his life are made by his father, King of England, in conjunction with the political and church powers-that-be. David has no say about his own future life. When he does say what he wants, his father throws a temper tantrum to top all tantrums.

With letters, phone calls, secret rendezvous, and help from French friends, David courts his darling Lily who gives him courage to use his position, charisma, and talents to make life better for all the people. With her as his cheerleader, he feels he can withstand the rigors of his duties and responsibilities that had at one time seemed unbearable.

Rebecca Dean creates a fascinating story of changing social structures, entitlement feelings of the aristocracy, political machinations, and the immeasurable impact love or the lack of love can have on events and lives.

The Golden Prince is not the standard HEA but it gives the reader the feeling all is unfolding just as it was destined in order for true happiness and fulfillment to come for each and every one of the characters whose lives are woven together in this beautiful tapestry of a tale.

originally posted at http://longandshortreviews.blogspot.c...