Leslie Carroll's interview on NPR's TRAVEL WITH RICK STEVES

The marvelous and engaging Rick Steves, travel guru extraordinare, interviewed me in March 2010 about traveling in the footsteps of famous royals. It was a marvelous opportunity to discuss my 2010 nonfiction release, NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES, and thanks to the broadcast, my book sales have skyrocketed.

The interview aired in mid-August 2010.

Here's the link to the interview. Please note that via the magic of Mr. Steves' editing, my segment is preceded, quite serendipitously, by an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert, author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE, which was adapted into a major (and just released) motion picture, starring Julia Roberts.

Leslie Carroll's interview on Rick Steves' travel program on NPR:

http://www.ricksteves.com/radio/streaming/program216.asx. Extras, including a discussion of Princess Diana, can be found at http://www.ricksteves.com/radio/archive.htm#216.

Enjoy -- and may you be tempted to hop on the next plane for your favorite palace!

ROYAL ROMANCES on the horizon!

Happy August, everyone!

As the "dog days" of summer continue (whyever are they called that? How would the phrase pertain to, e.g., a Siberian husky or an Alaskan Malamute on their home turf?) I am delighted to share some wonderful news:

I will be writing a fourth book in my nonfiction Royal series, to be titled

ROYAL ROMANCES: Titillating Tales of Passion and Power in the Palaces of Europe

I'm very excited about it and am still finalizing my table of contents. I'm always open to suggestions. In fact, this volume will include at least one couple of royal paramours that didn't make it into ROYAL AFFAIRS because of limitations on page count.

I tend to be as visual as I am verbal, and even though a production meeting on the cover art is months and months away, I love to imagine what NAL's art department might come up with.

Here are some of my initial thoughts:

The Kiss, by Francesco Hayez

The Black Brunswicker, by John Everett Millais

A Huguenot on St. Bartholomew's Day (also by Millais)

Just for the fun of it, if you have any cover art suggestions for a book titled ROYAL ROMANCES, feel free to share them. Who knows? Your suggestion may be on a book cover one of these days!

My March 2011 release: ROYAL PAINS

Coming March 1, 2011 from NAL:

ROYAL PAINS:

A Rogues' Gallery of Brats, Brutes, and Bad Seeds

In a world where sibling rivalry knows no bounds and excess is never enough, meet some of history’s boldest, baddest, and bawdiest royals


The bad seeds on the family trees of the most powerful royal houses of Europe often became the rottenest of apples. In an effort to stave off wrinkles, sixteenth-century Hungarian Countess Erzsébet Báthory bathed in the blood of virgins, and for kicks and giggles devised even more ingenious forms of torture than the über-violent autocrats Vlad (the Impaler) Dracula and Ivan the Terrible had ever imagined. Lettice Knollys strove to mimic the appearance of her cousin Elizabeth I and even stole her man. The Duke of Cumberland’s sexcapades and subsequent clandestine marriage led to a law that still binds England’s royal family. And the libidinous Pauline Bonaparte scandalized her imperial brother by having herself sculpted nearly nude and commissioning a golden drinking goblet fashioned in the shape of her breast.

Chock-full of shocking scenes, titillating tales, and wildly wicked nobles, Royal Pains is a rollicking compendium of the most infamous, capricious, and insatiable bluebloods of Europe.

Praise for Leslie Carroll's Notorious Royal Marriages

“For those who tackled Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, and can’t get enough of the scandal surrounding Henry VIII’s wives, [Notorious Royal Marriages is] the perfect companion book.”—The New Yorker

“Carroll writes with verve and wit about the passionate—and occasionally perilous—events that occur when royals wed.”—Chicago Tribune (5 stars)

The Jock Who Would Be King

Thirty-six-year-old Daniel Westling, former personal trainer to Crown Princess Victoria Ingrid Alice Desirée of Sweden, wed the princess on Saturday, June 19. He will henceforth be known as Prince Daniel, Duke of Vastergotland.

A rather vocal minority in Sweden believes the monarchy is passé and anachronistic, with 22% wanting the monarchy abolished entirely, up from 15% just six years ago. And a Facebook group called "Refuse to Pay for Victoria's Wedding" garnered popularity.

The thirty-two-year-old Crown Princess is currently next in line for Sweden's throne, although it wasn't always the case. In 1980 the succession law was changed, making King Carl XVI Gustaf's heir his oldest child, regardless of gender. Poor Prince Carl Philip, Victoria's younger brother. So close ... and yet so far.

Though I can guess how this is going down (after all, it's a royalist sort of blog), what's your opinon of this royal wedding -- and of monarchies in general?

Should taxpayers have been burdened (no matter how insignificant the share to the individual citizen of Sweden) with the cost of the flowers, booze, and royal wedding band?

Do you think monarchies are outdated? A charming relic of the past? Part of the continuity of a kingdom's history that is great for tourism and should continue indefinitely?

None of the above? Please share your thoughts. And what do you think of the fact that a gym rat whose father was a postal employee will one day sit on the Swedish throne? Very cool? Or very appalling?

Of Royalty, Polo, and Champagne

Courtesy of the Widow Veuve, polo returns to NYC on June 27 with a charity event sponsored by Veuve Clicquot champagne to benefit the American Friends of Sentebale, the US arm of a charity that Prince Harry of England founded to help underprivileged children in Lesotho.

Like his mother, the renegade redheaded prince is philanthropic and socially aware (except, umm... for those little hiccups where he forgets all lessons in World History and wears Nazi uniforms to fancy dress balls, or insults Pakistani comrades in arms with a derisive nickname related to their headgear).

Like his father, the Windsor spare plays polo.

I wish I could attend this event, and I do have a lovely pastel-colored suit and a large picture hat, so at least I can dress the part; but I think I'd need a charitable trust of my own to finance the excursion. However, as much as I write about royal scandals and scandalous royals, I'd be very tempted to root for Prince Harry's opponent, the Argentine heart-throb, polo player, and erstwhile Ralph Lauren model, Nacho Figueras.

Okay, ladies, which one would you choose to root for?

Grace Kelly: movie star, princess, fashion icon

If you're lucky enough to be in London this summer, and you're a big fan of all things royal, and you consider yourself something of a fashionista, or even a film buff -- if I were you, I'd run-not-walk to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which has on exhibition a retrospective of Grace Kelly's wardrobe.

http://www.stylelist.com/2010/04/09/grace-kelly-style-icon-exhibit-london-vanda-museum/



Born in November, 1929, Kelly grew up near Philadelphia's mainline, a princess of privilege, although her charismatic and entrepreneurial father Jack, a bricklayer by trade, was quite the self-made man. She studied acting in NYC at the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts on Madison Avenue, a conservatory that also produced the likes of Spencer Tracy, Robert Redford, and a starry-eyed kid who wasn't yet named Leslie Carroll.



First Broadway beckoned, then Hollywood, and the slender, blond, athletic golden girl, the quintessence of All-American beauty (although the fact [in the post WWII years] that her mother was German-born was either downplayed or suppressed by the media) became a film star by the time she was in her early 20s, winning an Academy Award for her leading role in "The Country Girl." At the age of twenty-six, believing that she'd done it all, and that the glamour of the silver screen would soon turn to tinsel (“Each year my makeup call is a lot earlier. And when I look at the other ladies who’ve been there since dawn, do I want to live like that? Get me out.”) she agreed to take time off from film promotion in Cannes to meet the thirty-one-year-old neighboring prince of Monaco, Rainier III.


The rest, as they say, is history: an archetypal fairy tale wedding (in truth funded by Jack Kelly and MGM; even her wedding gown, hair, and makeup was done by studio personnel), followed by three children and a jet-setting lifestyle in the ultimate gilded cage.

Grace Kelly's wedding suit (worn during her civil wedding, the day before the grand church wedding. Her formal wedding gown was deemed too fragile to travel to the V&A exhibit)

But of course, beneath the glittering surface all was not perfect -- and you can read the true story of the marriage of Grace and Rainier in my book, NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES: A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny, and Desire.


http://www.amazon.com/Notorious-Royal-Marriages-Journey-Centuries/dp/0451229010/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275829473&sr=1-1/div>

Are you familiar with the life of Grace Kelly? What's your impression of her?

Fergie's Noblesse Oblige

A royal scandal indeed! Of course Buckingham Palace is quick to remind the media that the Duchess of York's divorce from Prince Andrew means that she is no longer a member of the royal family, but that hasn't stopped the American press from Duchess in Disgrace headlines.

Royals occasionally make strange bedfellows when they've extended their financial means (Prinny, anyone?). Ditto for desperate and destitute divorcees.

So, what do you think of Sarah Ferguson's latest?