You don’t have to be a Princess Diana fanatic, or even a huge fan, to enjoy Wendy Holden’s new novel, “The Princess,” an incredibly well-researched historical fiction based on the life of Princess Diana. Holden presents the information through the eyes of a fictional friend of Diana’s from boarding school. The friend, Sandy, is invited to visit Diana in April, 1992, in Kensington Palace. They reminisce about the past, and Diana shares the details about the “romance” with Prince Charles that led to their marriage. What we find is not much romance and a lot of backstage maneuvering.

There are a few important takeaways from this well-written and touching novel. According to Holden, Lady Diana Spencer was truly in love with Prince Charles, although as we see in the narrative, it was certainly not mutual. Charles was in love with Camilla Parker-Bowles and had no intention of ending his relationship with her. They assumed Diana knew. She did not. The Diana we meet in these pages is a very young, unsophisticated eighteen.

Diana’s naiveté is almost painful to read about. We know that Charles’ lack of attention, lack of affection, and even occasional hostility toward her was because he really didn’t want to marry her. But because in Diana’s eyes, he was her destiny, her beloved Prince (she was a huge fan of Barbara Cartland’s sappy romance paperbacks), she made excuses for him. Over and over and over. When he unkindly called her “Chubby,” she began to binge and throw up to lose weight.

The careful research opens our (my) eyes to the machinations behind the reason that Diana became the Princess of Wales. There was literally no one else who fit the bill: wellborn, no scandals, virgin, and approved by the Queen, the Queen Mother, Prince Philip, and Charles. And yes, perhaps Charles came last in that order. She was presented as the one he needed to make his Princess of Wales to continue the royal dynasty.

There are fascinating details that are evidence of the huge chasm between the behavior of Queen Elizabeth II and the now King Charles. At Balmoral, Diana is surprised when told that the queen personally checks all the guest rooms, while then Prince Charles is apparently incapable of tying his own shoes and putting his toothpaste on his toothbrush. We see Prince Philip explain to Diana that his irascible character was a choice he made early in his marriage so that he would never overshadow his wife, the queen.

Diana is told that royalty must “never explain and never complain.” And she must never overshadow Charles. While the story ends at the point when Diana realizes that hers was to be a loveless marriage, the one thing that she had been certain would never happen to her, we wonder. We know how Diana overshadowed Charles—she was loved and revered around the world. She was not just a celebrity but an icon. Charles was a stuffy old fuddy-duddy; Diana was everything beautiful and kind and compassionate. And eventually, of course, Diana did not only explain (about there being three in the marriage during that famous interview), but she also complained. If Charles led her astray, she had her own kind of revenge.

But looking back, remembering her heartbreaking death at a young age, while Charles is king with his former mistress now his queen, we realize that he won. He ended up with everything he wanted. And I, at least, hate that. But this novel did pique my interest in reading more about what happened during the marriage, the time after this novel ends. Holden provides a list of books that she used in her research, so there are plenty of choices for readers who want to continue learning about this famous, doomed marriage. I highly recommend this historical fiction, which is quite obviously based on real, historical facts.

This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.