Feature: The Queen's Secret by Karen Harper

Happy Book Birthday to Karen Harper whose latest, The Queen's Secret: A Novel of England's WWII Queen, releases tomorrow.

Here's a bit about the book from Goodreads:

1939. As the wife of the King George VI and the mother of the future queen, Elizabeth—“the queen mother”—shows a warm, smiling face to the world. But it’s no surprise that Hitler himself calls her the “Most Dangerous Woman in Europe.” For behind that soft voice and kindly demeanor is a will of steel.

Two years earlier, George was thrust onto the throne when his brother Edward abdicated, determined to marry his divorced, American mistress Mrs. Simpson. Vowing to do whatever it takes to make her husband’s reign a success, Elizabeth endears herself to the British people, and prevents the former king and his brazen bride from ever again setting foot in Buckingham Palace.

Elizabeth holds many powerful cards, she’s also hiding damaging secrets about her past and her provenance that could prove to be her undoing.

In this riveting novel of royal secrets and intrigue, Karen Harper lifts the veil on one of the world’s most fascinating families, and how its “secret weapon” of a matriarch maneuvered her way through one of the most dangerous chapters of the century.

Karen Harper is a prolific author penning everything from contemporary romance/thrillers to historical fiction focused on the British monarchy, survivors of the Titanic, and even Shakespeare. This, her latest, is about the mother of the current queen. Most of what I know about this woman comes from The King's Speech, so this is a welcome addition to my TBR for sure!

Order it from BookBar!

The Royal Nanny by Karen Harper

Hi, everyone! Today I'm a stop on the TLC blog tour for Karen Harper's The Royal Nanny.

Charlotte Bill knew that working as a undernurse for the royal family was going to be an exciting change. But she never anticipated that it would be her literal life's work. 

Arriving at York Cottage at just eighteen, Charlotte, nicknamed Lala by the young heirs, was to help with the care of David and Bertie, grandsons of the Prince of Whales, and take primary care of their newborn sibling as soon as he or she arrived. But the undernurse soon found her responsibilities much increased when she witnessed the appalling behavior of the head nurse, earning her top spot in the boy's care and the unwavering affection of both boys, not to mention the trust of their parents. From that day forward, Lala's sole focus was on the growing family, the youngest of whom would demand more than any before. 

Karen Harper's latest is a fictionalized account of the life of Charlotte Bill, nanny to two kings and the "lost prince." Much of the story and specific details are based in fact, creating what Harper fondly calls "faction" a term coined by author Alex Haley to describe a fiction based strongly in fact.

So while we can't know the intimate thoughts or many of the literal conversations and such that took place during Charlotte's role as royal nanny, facts and actual accounts have been used to build a story that provides a look inside her life and world.

Hers is a fascinating story, one that (as mentioned above) includes the direct care of two kings - King Edward VII, who reigned for less than a year and abdicated the throne rather than break with his American lover, and King George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth II and the subject of The King's Speech. She cared for both brothers and all of their later siblings including Prince John who suffered from epilepsy (and now theorized to have been autistic as well) and was eventually settled at Wood Farm with Lala, away from the royal family.

All of that aside, Charlotte lived through spectacular times. The fall of Nicholas II in Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm in Germany, both of whom were direct relations to the royal family, and WWI all occurred during her time as nanny. For all intents and purposes, the story essentially ends with the death of Prince John, but Harper does provide both a prologue and an end chapter to wrap up Lala's story, giving readers a bit of closure in knowing that she remained connected to the family even after the death of her youngest charge.

Anglophiles and historical fiction fans will definitely enjoy getting to know Charlotte. In life and in fiction she is truly a person to be admired!

(Psst, Karen stopped over at the blog just last week with a guest post on The Royal Nanny. Be sure not to miss it.)

To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here.

For more on Karen Harper and her work you can visit her website here. You can also like her on Facebook.

Purchase Links: HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Guest Post by Karen Harper

Hello, everyone! Today I am happy to welcome author Karen Harper to the blog. Karen is the author of the very newly released The Royal Nanny, which I will be reviewing as part of the TLC blog tour next Thursday, June 30, so do be sure to check back here for that post. In the meantime, however, and to whet your appetite before turning things over to Karen, here's a bit about the book from Goodreads:

April, 1897: A young nanny arrives at Sandringham, ancestral estate of the Duke and Duchess of York. She is excited, exhausted—and about to meet royalty....

So begins the unforgettable story of Charlotte Bill, who would care for a generation of royals as their parents never could. Neither Charlotte—LaLa, as her charges dub her—nor anyone else can predict that eldest sons David and Bertie will each one day be king. LaLa knows only that these children, and the four who swiftly follow, need her steadfast loyalty and unconditional affection.

But the greatest impact on Charlotte’s life is made by a mere bud on the family tree: a misunderstood soul who will one day be known as the Lost Prince. Young Prince John needs all of Lala’s love—the kind of love his parents won’t…or can’t…show him.

The Royal Nanny is based on a true story - one that I was aware of thanks to the Masterpiece Theater airing of The Lost Prince. That and a brief bit of delving into other such history connected with the royal family (the current queen had two nieces hidden away in a mental institution if I remember correctly) aside, however, I've done very little deep reading on the subject of Prince John. And so, you can imagine how intrigued and excited I have been about delving into Karen Harper's latest. Again, I'll be posting my own thoughts next week. 

But now, without further ado, I'll hand things over to the author herself:

I have been a rabid Anglophile from way back so, though I am a life-long Ohioan, many of my novels have been faction (yes, fact plus fiction) focusing on fascinating British royal women. But the focus of THE ROYAL NANNY is not only the royal family of the Victorian and Edwardian eras—think Downton Abbey—but on the lower class Cockney girl who became their royal nanny. Remember the BBC series Upstairs, Downstairs? The heroine of this novel is caught between those two very British worlds.

Charlotte Bill, whom the children she tended called “Lala,” observes the sins and secrets of the rich and royal ‘Buck House’ set of that day. Because their mother was quite hands off, and their father was overbearing and eccentric, the six royal children Lala reared relied on her for love and protection.

That truth about the royal, noble and wealthy astounded me: The movers and shakers of the British Empire allowed lower class nannies to raise their children. This sad reality was amazingly widespread. When Winston Churchill died, the only picture on his bedside table was not that of his wife or daughter but of his long-dead nanny.

Lala became the emotion mother to David, later King Edward VIII/The Duke of Windsor; Bertie, later King George VI (of the movie The King’s Speech); three others and an epileptic and autistic boy, John, sometimes called ‘The Lost Prince.’ John’s medical conditions were not well understood, and his parents King George V and Queen Mary, grandparents of the current queen, tried to hide the child.

The family cousins and their stories also appear in the novel: Willie, the infamous Kaiser Wilhelm and Nicky, the doomed Czar Nicolas. What a family, what an insider’s view Charlotte, alias ‘Lala,’ provides.

I loved doing research for this novel. Another trip back to England, this time to tour Buckingham Palace and to revisit the Victorian and Albert Museum. I’m now hard at work on another novel of the same era, this time focusing on two notorious sisters…so, I’d better get back to work and to the U.K. again!

About the author: NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling author Karen Harper is a former university (Ohio State) and high school English teacher. Published since 1982, she writes contemporary suspense and historical novels about real British women. Two of her recent Tudor era books were bestsellers in the UK and Russia. A rabid Anglophile, she likes nothing more than to research her novels on site in the British Isles. Harper won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for DARK ANGEL, and her novel SHATTERED SECRETS was judged one of the Best Books of 2014 by Suspense Magazine. The author and her husband divide their time between Ohio and Florida. For more information please visit: www.karenharperauthor.com

Big, big thanks to Karen Harper for being on the blog today and to the folks at William Morrow for arranging the post. The Royal Nanny is out on shelves now!