Britain and Monaco: Royal families

Press, 17 December 1988, Page 23

Britain and Monaco: Royal families

By Royal Invitation: At Home With the Royal 'Family. By Unity Hall and Ingrid Seward. Macmillan, 1988, 168 pp. $29.95. Caroline and Stephanie: The Lives of the Princesses of Monaco. By Susan Crimp and Patricia Burstein. Macmillan, 1988. 115 pp. $24.95.

(Reviewed by

Kay Forrester)

What is it about Royalty that makes people want to know every little detail of Royal lives? And What is it that leads some journalists to devote their

careers to Royal watching? Presumably the answer to both questions is the same. These two books take quite different approaches — which, perhaps, says something about the particular Royal subjects. Hall and Seward write about the British Royals in a respectful way, occasionally taking the mickey, but very gently. Their book is divided into the sort of occasions which the reader might attend by Royal invitation. Each chapter runs through what can be

expected — of the guests and the hosts — at occasions in each of the Royal homes. Included are recipes for the dishes guests can expect to be served. “By Royal Invitation” is chock full of information about life as a British Royal and Royalists will thoroughly enjoy it. An eight-page centre spread contains colour photographs of members of the Royal family. Crimp and Burstein approach their subjects, the playgirl princesses of Monaco, differently. Based on interviews with friends and relatives of the two princesses, they set out to reveal the true Caroline and Stephanie. They are not so much interested in what breakfast might be served to the princesses in their bedrooms, but who might be there with them. But “Caroline and Stephanie” has more depth than a tabloid newspaper article. The two writers have written about the scandals and the secrets, but they have also written about the work Caroline has done since her mother died and about Stephanie’s desire to be an ordinary person. In short, their writing and the stories they tell reflect the Royals they are writing about. And that, after all, is what the Royal readers are after.