The Royal Windsor Secret

Rumours about illegitimate children of the Duke of Windsor (King Edward VIII) have abounded for years but none have ever been proved as far as I am aware. This novel explores that possibility. 
 
Cleo Davenport is abandoned as a baby at the famous Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo in 1918 where she is raised by an archaeological scholar, Serafina, one of the hotel’s permanent residents. On the brink of adulthood, Cleo starts to question her origins, but is met with silence or conflicting reports. Could her mother be the mysterious Marguerite, a French courtesan obsessed with jewels, and her father one of her lovers, the Prince of Wales?  
 
Cleo has artistic skills, her own passion being the design and creation of the kind of jewels adored by both Marguerite and Wallis Simpson, the future Duchess of Windsor. Her childhood friend, Brodie, is another disadvantaged child who is raised at the hotel. The two of them are fortunate to be taken under the wing of an aristocratic British couple and given opportunities for inclusion in upper-class society while undertaking education in England and France.
 
With her impulsive nature, Cleo can seem to make arbitrary decisions, especially regarding the long-suffering Brodie. Marguerite’s devious manipulation extends to the reader as, for much of her story, we don’t know which of her actions are real or fake.
 
The clunky title is a curious choice. While it might catch the eye of those looking for a lightweight romance about the royals, it does not do justice to a novel with so many disparate threads that include the dubious loyalties of the self-absorbed Windsors, details of French jewellery design, manufacture and sales, a notorious London murder trial, WW2 secret activities in Lisbon, Anglo-Egyptian politics, and even the founding of the SAS (Special Air Service) - not to mention how the status of women and society changed as the 20th Century progressed.

The resolution and ending are neatly tied and will satisfy the romantics, but for others wanting to know what is truth or fiction, the thorough author’s notes detail background sources and which characters were real people and those she invented.
 
Four stars.

(With thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. Book to be published in most countries by October, 2023.)
  
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