MEDIA COVERAGE 1 THE GOVERNESS is a novel about the childhood of the Queen and the unknown woman whose unique influence helped make her the world’s most successful monarch. It takes us right to the heart of the Royal Family through a crucial period in history, through the 1936 Abdication, the 1937 Coronation and the whole of World War II. Ending in 1947 with Princess Elizabeth’s wedding, THE GOVERNESS is the prequel to The Crown. Published by Welbeck in AUGUST 2020, it went straight into the Sunday Times bestseller list, earned rave reviews and intense media interest.. 2 SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN 3 4 FEATURE COVERAGE 5 The Daily Mail Feature Link 6 The Mail on Sunday Feature Link 7 Tatler 8 Tatler Feature Link 9 Harpers Bazaar 10 Sunday Express Magazine 11 Sunday Express Magazine Feature Link 12 Sunday Express Magazine Saga Magazine 13 Saga Magazine People Magazine 14 People Magazine 15 Woman and Home 16 Woman and Home 17 My Weekly Short Story, Fiction Special 18 Daily Telegraph Feature Link 19 BROADCAST COVERAGE 20 BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour Interview Feature Link 21 Sky News Interview 22 BBC Culture Piece by Hephzibah Anderson on royalty in fiction, leading with The Governess Feature Link 23 REVIEW COVERAGE 24 Good Housekeeping Bookshelf Top 10 Choice 25 Woman & Home Book Club Choice 26 Daily Mail ‘A hugely entertaining, emotionally satisfying story of love and loyalty.’ 27 My Weekly 28 Mail on Sunday ‘A poignant, fictional reimagining of a woman condemned by history, with plenty of modern-day echoes.’ 29 Platinum Magazine ‘Brilliantly researched... I was completely absorbed and transported.’ **** ADELE PARKS 30 Woman & Home Book Club Choice ‘A vivid, irresistible tale of royal rule-breaker Crawfie.’ WOMAN AND HOME ‘BEST OF HISTORICAL FICTION’ Feature Link 31 Womans Weekly Book Club 32 Book Trade ‘Books of the Month’ Easons The Hive 33 THE GOVERNESS is published as THE ROYAL GOVERNESS by Berkley Press, a division of PRH, in the USA. It attracted the attention of major newspapers: The Philadelphia Inquirer ‘Terrific.’ 34 The Washington Post FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 . THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE K C3 BOOK WORLD Crazy attention is given to the style The nanny who became a royal pain and the mood of Netflix’s ‘Ratched’ BY STEVE DONOGHUE THE ROYAL reader’s shoulder and whisper: GOVERNESS Irony, huh? How about that iro- TV REVIEW FROM C1 works won’t mind. “Ratched” reveal it here); the governor’s Although perhaps the bulk of A Novel of ny? When we meet the future combines the lushly lurid old- press secretary, Gwendolyn Wendy Holden’s readers in 2020 Queen King George VI, he’s intently, des- then puzzlingly dull for stretches, school glamour of his FX series Briggs (Cynthia Nixon), takes an won’t recognize the name Marion Elizabeth II’s perately smoking (the king will only to become interesting all “Feud: Bette and Joan” (in which immediate interest in Mildred. Crawford, the main character of Childhood develop lung cancer and die at over again. The show is a fine and powerful women discover that The asylum setting is, of her new book, “The Royal Gov- By Wendy age 56). Before she’s even met the flawed example of who Murphy is mutual respect is a byproduct of course, irresistible as a source of erness,” once upon a time, Craw- Holden little princesses, Crawford makes and what he makes. You can’t their bitter rivalry) with slightly creepiness, as Dr. Hanover tries to ford was a best-selling author and Berkley. 432 a comment about how “James II help but be lured in by it. less grisly aspects of “American improve on methods for loboto- the center of a controversy that pps. $26 and Bonnie Prince Charlie lost Behind her steely-eyed men- Horror Story: Asylum” (itself a mizing intractable patients and fascinated readers on both sides their kingdoms.” (She will live ace, the story of Nurse Mildred comment on mental-health-care prescribes other torturous treat- of the Atlantic. ward VIII for abdicating to marry through the abdication crisis, Ratched (yes, the very one from conditions before landmark revi- ments designed to “cure” such Crawford was governess to Wallis Simpson). while King Edward VIII will lose Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over sions of the Diagnostic and Statis- questionable diagnoses as homo- Princesses Elizabeth and Marga- Standing out gloriously even his kingdom.) When precocious the Cuckoo’s Nest” and the classic tical Manual of Mental Disorders, sexuality and teen angst. This bad ret, the daughters of the Duke and from this colorful cast is Queen Margaret flirts with Ambassador film adaptation, played here with featuring Catholic nuns with medicine has a way of feeling like Duchess of York. The girls, who Elizabeth, by far Holden’s most Kennedy’s son John, a character calm and collected determina- warped, Ratched-like control redundant territory in a Murphy referred to her as “Crawfie,” cher- winning fictional creation in sniffs, “A young man like that will tion by Sarah Paulson) is present- over their patients). drama, given how often he and ished her energy and honesty, and these pages. Marion has no soon- never amount to anything.” ed as a kind of feminist dawning. Six months after the priest his collaborators routinely de- she retained her position even er met her than she’s making the It’s an overindulgence, but it’s Nurse Ratched is someone trying slayings, Paulson’s Mildred, al- monize an array of authority-fig- when the duke and duchess be- obvious comparison: “She was this author’s only one. In all other to overcome her own damage and ways dressed to the nines, arrives ure archetypes — doctors, nurses, came King George VI and Queen like something out of P. G. Wode- respects, “The Royal Governess” demons and, in her demented at a sprawling asylum on the nuns, preachers, elected leaders, Elizabeth in 1936 and their elder house.” The queen burbles, she is spirited, virtually clockwork way, she wants to make the world Northern California seaside — Hollywood studio bosses, etc. It’s daughter, “Lilibet,” was suddenly merrily slings lingo such as “Tin- enjoyment, humanizing the kinder and more just, through the Lucia State Hospital, where the playful, but it has a way of becom- heir to the throne. kety-tonk, old fruit,” she slurps Windsor world through the death most painful and manipulative alleged killer, Edmund Tolleson ing a facile harangue against any- Those years are the playground gin at untoward hours and under- of two kings, the ordeal of an sort of caring. (Wittrock) is housed. Although one in charge. of Holden’s novel, which begins neath it all, as one character abdication and the very real dan- It can take a while for the series the asylum’s director, Dr. Richard That’s why Nurse Ratched has with Marion studying at a teacher observes, she’s as tough as an old gers of a world war. Through it all, to find its way — and often it’s the Hanover (Jon Jon Briones), tells such potential as a character training college in her native boot. Whether she’s charming a Marion Crawford is convincingly viewer who will feel as if they are her he has no job openings for study — how she gets off on Scotland and falling in love with a war-wary Ambassador Joe Ken- passionate, respected by every- missing something profound. As nurses, Ratched schemes her way simply taking charge. “One Flew handsome young communist nedy or bucking up the spirits of body in her glittering new world. a prequel set in 1947, it’s not onto the staff, to the dismay of Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” left her named Valentine, whose impetu- her timid husband, this Queen In the real world, it didn’t last. required that the viewer know Nurse Betsy Bucket, played by motivations vague, which had a ous anti-imperialist sloganeering Elizabeth thoroughly steals the The aforementioned controversy much about “Cuckoo’s Nest” or Judy Davis. way of making the viewer feel as is the author’s first gesture at show, both from Marion Craw- happened in 1950 when Crawfie even Louise Fletcher’s Oscar-win- This Nurse Bucket is pretty helpless as the drugged patients. foreshadowing but certainly not ford and from the future Queen committed the ultimate act of ning performance as a more pow- much your best reason to give “Ratched,” too, seems to let its her last. Marion gets a job in the Elizabeth, the teenager waiting in lèse-majesté by writing about her erful Ratched in the 1975 movie “Ratched” a whirl, with a splen- sense of purpose get similarly household of Lady Rose Leveson- the wings throughout the book. experiences as royal governess in version, other than the fact that didly sour performance and fogged in, as if the narrative has Gower and quickly comes to the Here, as in all other books, that a book, “The Little Princesses.” Murphy (working here with Ian much needed drop of comic ten- been slipped a calming sedative attention of Lady Rose’s sister, the other Elizabeth remains stub- The book sold briskly, but the Brennan and creator Evan Ro- sion from Davis — a template and is wearing restraints. Duchess of York, and finds herself bornly opaque. royal family felt betrayed. They mansky) is among our shrewdest example of institutional cruelty The show’s obsessive attention installed as governess to the two Of course, a part of the charm never spoke to Crawford again, and most knowing samplers of and caprice that will help create to style and mood begins to seem little princesses.