148 pages

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Secret Lives of Royal Women , livre ebook

Turner Publishing Company - Marlene Wagman-Geller

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148 pages

English

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Growing social network via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn. Member of the California Teacher’s Association (CTA) and its thousands of Facebook members.
Author has access to district wide mailing list and will be able to mobilize her social network.
Extensive list of bloggers, independent book sellers, individuals and press agents from prior books.

This book will appeal to

Readers of women’s history
Readers of women’s biography
Those interested in women’s studies
Those interested in royal histories/biographies

An excerpt from Chapter 34: State of Grace

If one were to free-associate with “South Africa,” images would appear of the horrors of Apartheid, the heroism of Nelson Mandela, the music of Paul Simon’s Graceland. A current litmus test of the country would likely conjure a South African woman who became the princess of a seaside principality that Somerset Maugham described as, “A sunny place for shady people.”

On occasion, gold medal winners receive post game laurels: Tommie Smith and John Carlos are immortalized in a sculpture, Mary Lou Retton graced a Wheaties box, and Caitlyn Jenner made a bid for California’s governor. Another athlete-in a variation of a medieval alchemist-turned Olympian gold into another type of gold.

The future Serene Highness of Monaco, Charlene Lynette Wittstock, was the daughter of Lynette, a former swimming coach and competitive diver, and Michael, a salesman. The couple raised Charlene and her two younger brothers in Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), before relocating to Benoni, South Africa. Michael recalled Charlene as a fearless tomboy who had jumped off a tree with the aim of landing on a horse. In the attempt, she broke her arm in three places. He added, “She was not scared of anything.”

A non-little mermaid, (she is just shy of six feet), Charlene’s passion was swimming, and after winning the national championship, she competed in the Sydney Olympic Games. Two years later, she garnered three World Cup gold medals and a silver medal in the women’s 4 100-meter relay at the Commonwealth Games. She eyed the 2008 China Olympics as her swan song, but an injury ended her aspirations. Out of the water, Charlene worked as a teacher.

The first time the billionaire bachelor, Prince Albert II, laid eyes on Charlene was in 2000 when he presided over the Mare Nostrum, an international swimming meet in Monaco. While Botticelli’s Venus had emerged naked from the sea, the South African swimmer emerged from the pool sheathed in spandex. Albert was taken with the blonde beauty who bore a strong resemblance to his late mother, Princess Grace. The prince asked her out, a request Charlene said, “was incredibly flattering.” They bonded over their love of sports; Albert had been a member of his country’s bobsled team in five Olympics. The following morning Charlene headed back to South Africa.

Five years later, following the death of Prince Rainier II, Charlene phoned Albert to offer her condolences, and they reconnected in Cape Town. Their first public appearance was a few months later at the Turin Winter Olympics. The paparazzi went into a feeding frenzy and the photograph of the royal dubbed “the Party Prince” and his comely companion made international front-page headlines. Although shy with a tendency to stutter, Albert had kept company with a bevy of beauties such as Brooke Shields, Gwyneth Paltrow, Claudia Schiffer, and Naomi Campbell. Albert invited Charlene to move to his storybook kingdom.

Monaco’s ruling family, the Grimaldis, had started off as pirates whose stronghold was a Mediterranean fortress that remains the foundation of the country’s royal palace. After the French Revolution, France took control over the rocky enclave. Sixty years later, Napoleon III returned it to the Grimaldis, although he kept 85 percent of the territory. In compensation for the acquisition, the French king gave Monaco’s monarch, Charles III, four million francs that he used to build a casino on a hill he christened Monte Carlo. The gambling mecca drew the well-heeled from the French and Italian Rivieras, where gambling was illegal. However, Prince Rainier was the driving force behind transforming his less than one-square-mile realm (the world’s smallest state after the Vatican) from a disreputable gambling den into a tax-free haven for the world’s wealthy. Garages and luxury hotels hold Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, and Bentleys; Lady Moura, a 344-foot-ling Saudi-owned yacht, replete with a helicopter, dominates its small harbor.

Charlene lived in her own apartment in the rarified zip code, waiting for her indecisive prince to propose. Although once fearless enough to try to land on a horse from a tree, her situation required another brand of courage. Ms. Wittstock was devoid of friends or family, without knowledge of French, a college degree, or a career; her only role was to appear at the side of the prince when summoned, where she smiled a lot and said very little. The idle rich of Monaco gossiped about the woman they disliked due to her middle-class upbringing, her foreign roots, and her Protestant religion. Charlene admitted to a reporter that since moving to Monaco, she had only made two friends and stated, “It was sometimes overwhelming. I was trying too hard to please too many people and at times was at risk of losing my sense of myself.” To add to Charlene’s stress, news circulated that Albert had fathered Alexandre with Nicole Coste, an Air France flight attendant from Togo, and a daughter, Jazmin Grace, with a California tourist, Tamara Rotolo. One Monaco resident admitted, “Rumor and malice are held up as a national sport.”

Chapter 1: Queen Anne Boleyn

Chapter 2: Queen Elizabeth I

Chapter 3: Lady Jane Grey

Chapter 4: Mary, Queen of Scots

Chapter 5: Empress Catherine the Great

Chapter 6: Queen Marie Antoinette

Chapter 7: Empress Josephine

Chapter 8: Queen Victoria

Chapter 9: Empress Elisabeth “Sisi”

Chapter 10: Queen Lililokani

Chapter 11: Tsarina Alexandra

Chapter 12: Queen Marie of Romania

Chapter 13: Princess Alice of Battenberg

Chapter 14: Wallis Simpson, The Duchess of Windsor

Chapter 15: Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother

Chapter 16: Empress Nagako

Chapter 17: Queen Marie-José

Chapter 18: Queen Geraldine Apponyi de Nagy

Chapter 19: Maharani Gayatri Devi

Chapter 20: Her Serene Highness Ashraf Pahlavi

Chapter 21: Cayetana de Silva, The Duchess of Alba

Chapter 22: Queen Elizabeth II

Chapter 23: Princess Grace Kelley

Chapter 24: Princess Margaret

Chapter 25: Queen Narriman

Chapter 26: Princess Jelisaveta

Chapter 27: Gyalmo Hope

Chapter 28: Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall

Chapter 29: Queen Noor

Chapter 30: Sarah, The Duchess of York

Chapter 31: Princess Diana

Chapter 32: Princess Leila

Chapter 33: Princess Haya

Chapter 34: Princess Charlene

Chapter 35: Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex

Chapter 36: Kate, The Duchess of Cambridge

Sujets

Publié par	Turner Publishing Company
Date de parution	13 septembre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781642509441
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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An excerpt from Chapter 34: State of Grace

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