Princess Sophia is not the eldest or most charming (that would be her older brother Prince Toby), not the prettiest or smartest (that would be her cousin Princess Veronica), neither the bravest nor the most brash (younger sister Princess Harry), nor the maddest (the reigning King of Montmaray, Uncle John). Living in a decrepit, crumbling stone castle on an island surrounded on all sides by a cold and unforgiving sea, the FitzOsbornes are hardly your typical aristocratic royals.
With as many FitzOsborne royal highnesses (4 on the island, with one prince heir studying at Eton) as there are inhabitants, the handful of countrymen and women hardly stand on ceremony – especially considering how threadbare and impoverished the royal family actually is. Sitting a scant few hundred miles off the coasts of England and France, Montmaray and her inhabitants are a strange, quirky bunch. October, 1936 – the sovereign island nation of Montmaray seems an idyllic, impossible place. That said, I felt like I didn’t have enough room to truly give the novel its due credit (250 words is NOT ENOUGH!), and with the release of the third book in the series out soon, I decided to revisit Montmaray here with a formal re-read and review. Why did I read this book: I’m actually cheating a bit – I’ve read and reviewed this novel before, back in 2009, when it first came out in the US. Stand alone or series: Book one of the Montmaray Journals And then suddenly politics become very personal indeed.Ī Brief History of Montmaray is a heart-stopping tale of loyalty, love, and loss, and of fighting to hold on to home when the world is exploding all around you. The politics of Europe seem far away from their remote island-until two German officers land a boat on Montmaray. But this is 1936, and the news that trickles in from the mainland reveals a world on the brink of war. When she receives a journal for her sixteenth birthday, Sophie decides to chronicle day-to-day life on the island.
Sophie Fitzosborne lives in a crumbling castle in the tiny island kingdom of Montmaray with her eccentric and impoverished royal family. “There’s a fine line between gossip and history, when one is talking about kings.”
Publication Date: June 2008 (Aus) / March 2011 (US) Publisher: Random House Australia (Aus) / Random House Children’s Books (US) Genre: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, WWII
0 kommentar(er)
