The Making Of A Royal Romance: William, Kate, And Harry–A Look Behind The Palace Walls By Katie Nicholl

Book

Good book about the two princes and what it was like to grow up in the House of Windsor. Lots of detail about having Diana as a mother and Charles as a father. The additional information about Kate is good and adds to the book.

Thoroughly enjoyable read and I just couldn’t put it down. Katie Nicholl clearly has a very close association with many members of the Royal Family and she’s written the book in a honest and positive way. She writes quite a lot about Harry and William – not just about Kate and William. The book also reiterates how very much William and Harry still love and adore their mother.

Katie Nicholl gives quite a good insight into the making of this royal romance. However, I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 because I expected less to be written about Harry and much more of the actual romance. However, as I said an enjoyable read.

I love anything about Prince William and Catherine Middleton, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge! They are so classy and elegant. I’m not from the U.K. but they are my favorite royals. Neither of them would do anything to purposely hurt anyone else and they are not selfish. Kate will make a great Queen Consort at William’s side when he is King. I love their personalities and how caring they truly are. Overall these two are the epitome of class, elegance, selflessness and represent what it means to be truly human and caring about others. Princess Diana would be proud of Prince William and Kate and how well they are doing raising their children.

This is a biography of Prince William and Prince Harry revised to include details about Catherine Middleton and her relationship with Prince William. It’s packed with all sorts of details about their youth, school days and time in the military including, but also going beyond, the familiar stories of their excesses which have appeared in tabloids. Author Katie Nicholl is the Royal Correspondent for a British newspaper who, after covering him for more than ten years, has found William to be a ‘sensitive, thoughtful and sometimes misunderstood young man who more than anything wants to be ordinary.’

The book reports the events and details of the princes lives extensively. There is their happy youth violently interrupted by the tragic death of their mother, Diana. A gap year then St Andrews college for William and Sandhurst for Harry. And William’s on-again off-again on-again relationship with Catherine Middleton and Harry’s on-again off-again relationship with Chelsy Davy. We are told what grades they earn, where they go skiing, who they hang out with and which country homes they swim around the moats in after a night of drinking. But while there is a wealth of this sort of relevant and irrelevant detail, it doesn’t really add up to much of great interest. And when we are told that at St Andrews University ‘William was developing a reputation for being aloof and even a touch boring’ we can believe it.

One other point of interest of this book is the truly impressive research the author has put in to cataloging the princes taste in alcoholic beverages. They really like to drink and have quite exotic taste indeed. Perhaps they got it from their father Prince Charles, who at the age of fourteen, we are told, ‘had got drunk on cherry brandy during a sailing trip to Stornoway with four friends.’ As teenagers William took Harry to the Rattlebone Inn, a sixteenth century pub near Charles’s Highgrove estate, where he drank ‘the pub’s potent Pheasant Plucker cider’ as well as ‘pints of snakebite, a mixture of cider and beer.’

Harry quickly establishes himself as the thirstier of the two princes. Before going to Sandhurst Harry spent time at a bar called Nam Long-Le Shaker where he held the record ‘for being able to drink three of their White Panther cocktails in a row. The delicious but potent mix of rum, vodka and coconut milk is served in a giant glass and usually requires two people to drink it.’

While on a British Army training trip to Canada, Harry makes time to go to the bar and enjoy sambuca shots and rum and Coke. And when he reunites with girlfriend Chelsy after a breakup they dink two magnums of Moet et Chandon. Later they are seen sipping ‘Porn Star Martinis, a cocktail of vanilla vodka, passion fruit and champagne.’

Not to be outdone, in college William went to dinner parties where claret, port or the bottle of Jack Daniel’s which he would always bring were served and where he played such drinking games as “I’ve Never” ‘which entails one player admitting to the others something she or he has never done and then asking the other if they have. If anyone has done the deed in question they must take a drink.’

We are told William prefers red wine to beer and Harry’s favorite drink is Belvedere vodka and cans of Red Bull. (Their protection officers sip Coke.)

While this book doesn’t quite succeed in revealing the inner qualities of it’s subjects, it does have many of the answers to questions you might never have thought of asking, like how did they pay for all that booze? Answer, they didn’t. The ‘royal comp’ meant that their drinks were often provided free by the clubs where they drank.

I really enjoyed this book- you never know EXACTLY how much is 100% true, but it seems like the author did her homework and made an interesting read. It stops after the engagement, but since I watched the wedding on TV that was ok with me- it gave a great look behind the scenes of the royal family and really demonstrated how hard Prince William tried to experience things as normally as possible. I think it paints Princess Catherine in a very positive light (I’m reading another one that tends to make her look more like she’s climbing the social ladder). It is also really interesting to read about Prince Harry and his antics and his special relationship with his brother. I recommend it if you’re interested in these young royals!