Ever After: Diana and the Life She Led

This is the stuff of fairy tales said the Archbishop of Canterbury on July 23 1981 after the 20-year-old Lady Diana Spencer arrived in a glass coach for her wedding to Prince Charles. But everyone knows how that fairy tale ended. . Drawing upon intensive research and interviews acclaimed biographer Anne Edwards well-known for her revelatory and incisive books on members of Britains royal family here uncovers new details of Dianas life and her search for love; of her family background; and of a betrayal historic in its outcome. What the public did not know at the time of her storybook wedding was the true story of Dianas troubled childhood-of the cold autocratic grandfather who disdained her father who was himself an abusive husband obsessed with having a son to inherit the Spencer wealth and title.. When Diana married Prince Charles she joined the equally troubled House of Windsor and was caught up in a plot Shakespearean in its deception and eventual tragic ending. Anne Edwards paints a vivid portrait of a woman desperate in her marriage fearful of her life who became devious-and often brilliant-in the moves she played in a treacherous royal chess game.. As in her superb biographies of other royal and celebrated women Anne Edwardss Ever After transcends the one-sided views of Diana in a work that must be called definitive. At long last and with all of the insight and narrative drama that have marked her previous bestsellers Edwards brings us the first full-scale authoritative portrait of a more intelligent more resourceful and sometimes more ruthless woman than we have seen before.. Dianas many fans are sure to be delighted by Edwardss intimate prose and detailed descriptions. - Publishers Weekly