{"title":"Tom Quinn","description":"\u003cp\u003eTom Quinn explores the fascinating lives and secrets of royalty with a keen eye for detail and intrigue. Readers can expect richly researched biographies and memoirs that delve into the complexities behind the grandeur of royal palaces, scandals, and the personal stories of those who live within their walls.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith titles such as \u003cem\u003eGilded Youth\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eKensington Palace\u003c\/em\u003e, Quinn offers a captivating glimpse into history’s most compelling figures, blending factual insight with vivid storytelling. These works invite readers to uncover the human stories behind public pageantry and tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"gilded-youth-by-tom-quinn-9781785907647","title":"Gilded Youth","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNew from the bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eBackstairs Billy: The Life of William Tallon, the Queen Mother's Most Devoted Servant\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eKensington Palace: An Intimate Memoir from Queen Mary to Meghan Markle.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFor as long as the British royal family has existed, royal children have been brought up in ways that seem bizarre and eccentric to the rest of us. The royal family's obsession with making their children tough and independent as early as possible by farming out their parental duties to paid staff goes back centuries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eGilded Youth\u003c\/i\u003e looks at centuries of royal and aristocratic children misbehaving, often hilariously. From Edward VII smashing up his schoolroom to Prince Andrew peeing on a stable lad's shoes; from Princess Margaret putting horse manure in a footman's pockets to Diana Spencer wearing crop tops, snogging a local village boy, and drinking cider in a bus shelter; from a teenage Prince Harry throwing up in the street to Prince William becoming completely shut down and obsessed with doing the right thing regardless of the feelings of his brother. Even Queen Elizabeth herself reacted oddly to her upbringing, becoming in many ways obsessively compulsive. As a child, she insisted her shoes should always be positioned in the same place, her lunch set out exactly the same way each day, and that for tea, she have jam pennies (small rounds of bread and jam), which she was still eating every afternoon into her nineties.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe younger generation have to insist they want a normal or ordinary upbringing for their children because that goes down well with the public, but this is just window dressing. \u003ci\u003eGilded Youth\u003c\/i\u003e looks at how, when it comes to children, the British royal family is still living in the Dark Ages.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A prolific writer of books that explore England's history, Tom Quinn uses his expertise to flesh out and bring context to some of the more recent controversies to emerge out of the palace.' -\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46843811266796,"sku":"9781785907647","price":44.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/23691303482823.jpg?v=1758813493"},{"product_id":"kensington-palace-by-tom-quinn-9781785904790","title":"Kensington Palace","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor more than 200 years, the younger members of the British royal family—including future monarchs—have lived at Kensington Palace, alongside royal aunts and uncles, distant cousins, and assorted aristocratic eccentrics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eKensington Palace has been the scene of countless bizarre events. Here, for example, the young Queen Victoria was held a virtual prisoner for eighteen years. It was from Kensington Palace that Queen Caroline ran the country while her husband, George II, moved his pictures around.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn more recent times, Kensington Palace was famously the scene of Charles and Diana's nightmare marriage and Charles's serial adulteries. But then Kensington Palace has a long history of royal philandering. George II installed his wife and mistress in the palace, for example, and made his mistress sleep in a room so damp there were said to be mushrooms growing on the walls.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnd then there were the eccentrics. George III's sixth son, Augustus, Duke of Sussex, became a virtual recluse at the palace. He collected hundreds of clocks and mechanical toys, thousands of early Bibles, and dozens of songbirds that were allowed to fly freely through the royal apartments. Today, the palace is home to the future King William and his wife, Catherine, and until recently was home to the newly married Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Harry and Meghan.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe palace has been described as a royal menagerie, a hive of industrious freeloaders, an ant heap, and even a lunatic asylum.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eUsing extensive interviews with former and serving Kensington Palace staff, Tom Quinn takes the reader behind the official version of palace history to discover intriguing, sometimes wild, often scandalous, but frequently heart-warming stories.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46844330311916,"sku":"9781785904790","price":24.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/23662733482823.jpg?v=1758835910"},{"product_id":"scandals-of-the-royal-palaces-by-tom-quinn-9781785906527","title":"Scandals of the Royal Palaces","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e'Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.' - Henry Fielding\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGeorge Orwell once said that the British love a really good murder. He might also have said that the only thing the British love more than a good murder is a really good scandal, and best of all are the political and sexual scandals that take place in Britain's royal palaces.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDozens of royal scandals have been covered up or suppressed to some degree by an establishment that is famous for its determination to keep royal secrets, well, secret.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis book is the first in-depth look at the outrageous behaviour not just of the royals themselves but also of palace officials, courtiers, household servants and hangers-on. Covering existing royal palaces in some depth as well as taking a look at scandals linked to long-vanished royal residences, such as Whitehall, Nonsuch and Kings Langley, \u003ci\u003eScandals of the Royal Palaces\u003c\/i\u003e also includes new information on well-known and not-so-well-known scandals, including those that have only recently been revealed in detail through the release of previously secret official papers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs this glorious romp of a book reveals, scandal and the royal family have always been bedfellows, and the key to the sometimes extraordinary scandals the royal family have become involved in are the palaces in which they live.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46845735960812,"sku":"9781785906527","price":44.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/23680103482823.jpg?v=1758891749"},{"product_id":"yes-maam-by-tom-quinn-9781785908460","title":"Yes, Ma'am","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat really makes the British royal family tick? It's a question that royal watchers have pondered for as long as there has been a royal family. And the answer?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWell, surprisingly, it's not the royal family's devotion to duty, it's not their wealth or their status, it's not even their popularity (or notoriety!). No, what really makes the royal family tick is the huge body of servants and staff past and present who feed and clothe the royals, organise their days, polish their shoes, carry the deer and pheasants they shoot, and even put the toothpaste on their toothbrushes. If you want to find out who these servants are, what they do and why, in so many cases, they devote their whole lives to royal service, then this book is for you.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSome servants became utterly indispensable to the royals for whom they worked  Elizabeth II's childhood nanny Bobo MacDonald, for example, was closer to the late Queen than anyone in her family, not excepting even her husband Prince Philip and her sister Princess Margaret.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the other end of the spectrum, some members of staff found their royal employers arrogant, overbearing, snobbish and even infantile. As one recent member of the Kensington Palace team put it: 'What you get with one or two members of the royal family is a public angel and a private devil! And only the staff see the private devil!'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A prolific writer of books that explore England's history, he uses his expertise to flesh out and bring context to some of the more recent controversies to emerge out of the palace.' \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKensington Palace: An Intimate Memoir from Queen Mary to Meghan Markle:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A sparkling account of the often very unregal goings-on at the palace. Richly laced with insider gossip, this is behind-the-scenes royal history at its most entertaining.' \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDaily Mail\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A fascinating must-read.' \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBella\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47289320145132,"sku":"9781785908460","price":44.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/2db31e852a8ee45636d1b9ee9c2a1ce2.jpg?v=1770600663"},{"product_id":"yes-maam-by-tom-quinn-9781785909856","title":"Yes, Ma'am","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA smorgasbord of scandals\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003eTatler\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe revelations are as juicy as can be\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003eHarper's Bazaar\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhat really makes the royal family tick?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a question that royal watchers have pondered for as long as the monarchy has existed. And who better to ask than the army of servants and staff, past and present, who feed and clothe the royals, organise their days, polish their shoes, carry the deer they shoot, and even put the toothpaste on their toothbrushes?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom medieval times, when the Groom of the Stool oversaw the monarch's lavatorial exploits, and courtiers accompanied the king and queen to bed on their wedding night and made bawdy remarks until ushered out of the room, below-stairs staff have had a unique insight into the lives of their royal masters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this lively and colourful history, now updated in paperback, royal expert Tom Quinn goes behind palace doors to give a compelling glimpse of Britain's royals, ancient and modern. Here you will find the tales of the equerry who threatened to throw Queen Victoria out of her own stables, the junior footman who had to change his name on the orders of the queen, and the lady in waiting who, with Prince Philip's mother, Princess Alice, regularly set fire to her rooms at Buckingham Palace.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePerhaps most intriguing of all, we see, through the eyes of serving and recently retired staff, how today's royals live, including how the relationship between Meghan and Harry and William and Kate started with high hopes and descended into bitterness and anger, and how the former Prince Andrew's life has changed since being cast out by the royal family.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47602696093932,"sku":"9781785909856","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/4b1769ed0f66e7f8c5d3667a8e73b9ba.jpg?v=1778106604"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/tom-quinn.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}