Gone With The Windsors

The hilarious and touching novel from Laurie Graham – the fictional diary of the Queen’s best friend in pre-war London. London, 1930s: the supper clubs are sublime, the servants are revolting and Mr Hitler seems like a decent type … Maybell Brumby and her old school friend Wallis Simpson go a long way back, so when they are reunited in London in 1932 they fit together like a horse and carriage. Maybell has the money and Wally has a nose for useful connections - and before long Wally has reeled in a very big fish: the Prince of Wales. Aimless and underemployed, the heir to the throne is ripe for being taken in hand. But even scheming Wally hasn't allowed for a chest cold carrying off the old King … The scandal, the abdication, and the world rolling relentlessly to war: Maybell's diary records it all in a confection of candyfloss, acid drops and the occasional hard centre. Everybody thinks they know the story of the divorcee from Baltimore who stole the King but nobody tells it like Maybell … The hilarious and touching novel from Laurie Graham – the fictional diary of the Queen’s best friend in pre-war London. Laurie Graham's brilliant novel is the fictional diary of Maybell Brumby, a wealthy American widow who arrives in London in 1932 and discovers that an old school friend is in town: Bessie Wallis Warfield, now Mrs Ernest Simpson. Maybell and Wally are made for one another. One has money and a foothold in high society, courtesy of a sister who married well. The other has ruthless ambition and enough energy to power the National Grid. Before the year is out, Wally has begun her seduction of the Prince of Wales, and as she clambers towards the throne she makes sure Maybell and her cheque book are always close at hand. So Maybell becomes an eye-witness to the Abdication Crisis. From her perch in Carlton Gardens, home of her influential brother-in-law Lord Melhuish, she has the perfect vantage point for observing the anxious, changing allegiances for and against Queen Wally, and the political contours of pre-war London. When the crisis comes and Wally flees to the south of France, she insists on Maybell going with her. 'Are you sure that's advisable, darling?' asks the King. 'Of course it is,' snaps Wally. 'She's the Paymaster General.' Maybell's diary records the marriage, the Windsors' exile, and the changing complexion of the Greatest Love Story. It takes the sound of German jackboots at the gate and personal tragedy to make her close its pages for the last time.