Customer Reviews

The Royal W.E. Unique Glimpses of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Same old topics about the Duke and Duchess, nothing new here so don't waste your time or money. The author rambles and why this book received any attention and was published is a mystery to me. A loss of $2.99 for me and a lesson to make my purchases more carefully.

What is essentially unique about the glimpses that Victoria Martinez provides us with in The Royal W.E.: Unique Glimpses of the Duke & Duchess of Windsor is her fresh and informed insight into the lives of the exiled couple that she has gained through extensive research into contemporary archives relating to both their own lifestyle and to the sphere in which they moved. Her primary intent in writing about royalty in such an invigorating way, Martinez claims, is her desire to convert the reader of fiction who, until coming to her work, had thought of history as fuddy-duddy and anachronistic. In a discussion with Ist Author Interviews, the writer states, "I...felt that it was important to write historical nonfiction in a way that would be as interesting and enjoyable to people as historical fiction."

Martinez's years in PR have certainly taught her how to publicize her writing well, with much of her material first having been blogged at the Unofficial Royalty website. She gives credit to Geraldine Voost for giving her the first opportunity to write to a large online audience about Wallis Simpson and the abdicated King Edward VIII, to whose defense she feels drawn, considering them both to have been much discredited in terms of both royal sanction and public sentiment. Much of the impetus in her writing does, indeed, seem to come from her having been a columnist for such a medium, as it is a far cry from dry academic texts that one sometimes associates with historical penmanship. The absence of extensive foot/endnotes, a bibliography and index are noted, which, though possible serving as a drawback to fellow historians and avid history cognoscenti, may appear in a more positive light to those who are looking for a fun and interesting read. After all, one hardly expects to find such careful annotation in a Georgette Heyer novel, for example, as one does in a work by David G. McCullough, does one?

Not that Martinez has only written for such an attention-grabbing and immediately accessible source, for she has also used Mark Gaulding's quarterly journal of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor Society as an open forum for discussion on her work for many years. The final chapter of The Royal W.E., "A Fool Would Know," was also originally published in Arturo Beéche's European Royal History Journal. This chapter is of specific note for its extensive detailing of the 1946 robbery of Wallis Simpson's jewels during a visit to Ednam Lodge, the country estate of the Earl and Countess of Dudley.

In short, if you are set on an enjoyable and informative read that requires little effort on your part, you can't go far wrong by downloading The Royal W.E.: Unique Glimpses of the Duke & Duchess of Windsor.

this book states that it deals with facts and not gossip but it is just like the others. calling something a fact does not make it so. worst of all it takes an interesting couple and makes their story boring.

Victoria Martinez's second book, "The Royal W.E. Unique Glimpses of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor" is very well-researched and easy to ready. It works for scholars, who know almost everything there is to know about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and for those, who like me, knew little about them. For the well-versed in the history of the Duke and Duchess, it provides a fantastic final chapter "A Fool Would Know", about the Duchess of Windsor's jewel theft, which adds new information unavailable up to now. For those who aren't too familiar with them, it provides a picture of the human side of the couple and it allows the reader to form an opinion about who they were without the preconceptions that may arise about a subject when you know a lot about it. The book is really entertaining and will be a very enjoyable read even for those who are not all that interested in the royals or even biographies.

I purchased this so that I could read a fact filled book about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor rather than one filled with assumptions and inuendos. This book was a very interesting read and fulfilled my fleeting interest.

I am also a royal history buff, and really enjoyed this account of these two unique people. Mrs. Martinez sticks with the facts and doesn't try to whitewash over the less than pleasant things. I look forward to more writings from her soon.

Royal kudos to Victoria Martinez for giving us all such an engaging and easy to read look into the lives of this fascinating couple. It is quite obvious from all the detailed facts revealed that this book was carefully researched. The author connected directly with the reader and challenged our thinking to search for the truth. Instead of taking a side or making quick judgements, we were given just enough factual information to draw our on conclusions about The Duke and Duchess of Windsor. There will continue to be a mystery surrounding this dynamic duo (a former king of England who gave up his crown to marry the woman he loved, a twice divorced American), but several new and important pieces of their life puzzle have been revealed in this book. It was especially fascinating to read about the Duchess's jewelry collection and the controversy behind it. The ending came much too quickly, but I have this book stored in my Kindle for another read very soon.

Couldn't believe when this book ended. Very little was said about the wonderful style of the Windsor's. How did they live? Who were their friends. What was their relationship like? This would have been graded a D!