Beach Trash for your winter holiday

The Other Windsor Girl, sub-titled Princess Margaret, Royal Rebel, by Georgie Blalock is about as close as I have come to reading a true romance novel. The author does, in fact, write for Harlequin, as does her fictitious character The Honourable Vera Strathmore. The other Windsor girl is, of course, Princess Margaret, the younger sister of our present Queen. I will admit to having an interest in books and films about the royal family, and I am old enough to remember news of Princess Margaret and the scandals of her life and loves.

This novel begins in the fall of 1949, dreary post-war London, England. Vera’s fiancé was killed in the war and she is among many young women who watch others marry while they wonder what will become of them all.

Vera is secretly writing trashy, but very popular, romance novels and saving her proceeds to one day escape from the parental home and go off to New York to become a real novelist. Turns out that Princess Margaret reads Vera’s novels and a friendship of sorts begins. Margaret is young and has both the means and the desire to be different from her sister who will be Queen. Margaret, the party girl, is restless and revolts against the staid rules of society, falling in love with an older, married, man who she is determined to have as her husband. But, the reality is she does not want to give up the privilege that comes with her status as Her Royal Highness. Hers is an interesting story and one that has fascinated royal watchers for almost a century.  

Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict is another book that will pass a day on a plane or on the beach.

I have long been fascinated by the life and career of Sir Winston Churchill. I still have a tattered scrapbook I put together with news items, when I was in Grade 7, the year of his death. So a novel of historical fiction about his wife, Clementine looked worth reading – and it is. Clementine was a woman with confidence in her own intelligence and ability, and she became an indispensible assistant to her husband. He called her his “secret weapon”.

Travel to Germany in the 1930’s made both Churchills very aware of the danger of Hitler’s increasing power in Europe. When war came Clementine believed that women could take the place of men in many positions of employment during the war, freeing up men for combat, and convinced her husband of this. Both Clementine and Winston Churchill often visited air raid shelters and made frequent appearances in bomb-damaged neigbourhoods, well aware of the need to boost moral among the citizens of London in order to win the war.

With Clementine always at the side of her husband, they both felt that he, and only he, could see clearly the role of government. That only Churchill could formulate the plan, and put it into place, ultimately winning the Second World War.

Clementine was a complicated and, I thought, vain woman who at the same time struggled with the demands of motherhood and her desire for some independence from her powerful husband’s needs.

When you finish these novels you can leave them on the beach chair without regret and someone else will be happy to read them too!