Dear Reader,
I’ve always believed that families are like foreign lands, with their own language and culture, their own laws and legends. No one truly really knows what it’s like to live there, except for the inhabitants. This is especially true of the British royal family. While we study photos of this glamorous nation, while we gossip about its citizens and know all its folklore, the reality of their daily lives remains a total mystery to us.
As a journalist who often covers the British royal family, I’ve learned that they consider this mystery vital to their survival. As English historian Walter Bagehot once wrote, the royal family’s “mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic”.
My novel, The Heir Apparent, is an attempt to climb over palace walls to know what it’s really like to be a member of this most famous and enigmatic family. What’s it like to be told that you are special by virtue of your birth? How do you love your relatives freely and wholly when you are ranked against each other? Can you truly trust your loved ones when spies and informants lurk around corners, and the temptation to leak each other’s secrets is intoxicating? Is it possible to live a real life when your job is to consistently project a fantasy to the world? And what happens when you’re born in the royal family, but you’re not sure you want any part of it?
This is the quandary that my main character, Lexi Villiers, must face. She spent the first seventeen years of her life trying to be the perfect princess, but the loss of her mother upends her world and leaves her questioning everything. So she spurns royal life, moves to the very edge of civilization, and reinvents herself as a doctor and private citizen. After more than a decade living in the real world, a personal tragedy draws Lexi back to the palace from which she once fled. There, she grapples with big questions about destiny, service, and sacrifice.
You don’t need to be interested in royals to enjoy The Heir Apparent. This is ultimately a book about family, loyalty, grief and power – themes that touch us all. It’s about a young woman who must decide what’s more important: duty or following your own heart. If nothing else, I hope this book is like a stamp in your passport that lets you briefly visit a foreign land where few outsiders are permitted to tread.
Love from,
Rebecca, XO
