Gone with the Windsors

Book info: Gone with the Windsors (Hardcover, 512 pages – London : Fourth Estate, 2005) – London : Fourth Estate, 2005. Language: Eng.

Condition: Very Good

Laurie Graham's new novel is the fictional diary of Maybell Brumby, a wealthy American widow who arrives in London in 1932 and discovers that an old school friend is in town; Bessie Wallis Warfield, now Mrs Ernest Simpson. Maybell and Wally are made for one another. The one has money and a foothold in good society, courtesy of a sister who married well. The other has ruthless ambition and enough energy to power the National Grid. Before the year is out Wally has begun her seduction of the Prince of Wales, and as she clambers towards the throne she makes sure Maybell and her cheque book are always close at hand. So Maybell becomes an eye-witness to the Abdication Crisis. From her perch in Carlton Gardens, home of her influential brother-in-law Lord Melhuish, she has the perfect vantage point for observing the anxious, changing allegiances for and against Queen Wally, and the political contours of pre-war London.