Synopsis
This debut novel from the daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia and the sister of "Dynasty" star Catherine Oxenberg tells the story of a young aristocrat trying to make it on her own. Maria Moses had it hard growing up as the daughter of dispossessed Yugoslavian royalty. Her mother was inattentive, and as a convenience, sent Maria to live in a psychiatric hospital for the majority of her youth. Now 18 and living in New York on a small allowance, Maria can neither type nor spell, and her wealthy friends are getting tired of taking care of her. Enter Tino Brooks, a con man and Maria's parents' worst enemy. Tino sweeps Maria off of her feet, and in the process steals away the Scottish castle that was to be her inheritance.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-06-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 238 pages | | Height: | 9.0 in | | Width: | 5.8 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 14.4 oz |
Publisher's Note
Maria Moses has always felt alike an outsider in her family. Her mother, a princess from a deposed royal European family, is absorbed in herself and her social life. Her older sister, Miranda, busy with the seduction of older men and the trappings of luxury, alternately ignores and despises her. And her well-intentioned father is too busy playing tennis to notice his younger daughter's growing dislocation.
Maria is further removed from her family when a childhood friend dies in an accident and she is sent to a boarding school for emotionally disturbed children. These, she is the victim of a terrible crime that threatens to scar her permanently.
Searching for validation, she finds Tino, a worldly older married man, who promises to elevate he above her family. But finding a life with him may cost Maria all she has left. Torn by the contradiction in her life, she must face up to her past and her family's legacy of lies and illegitimacy.
Ranging from the lush summer playgrounds of the rich to windswept Scottish castles, ROYAL BLUE is the evocative and humorous story of a young woman seeking a physical and spiritual home among the parties, palaces, and jet-set lifestyle of a dispossessed, fractured family, ROYAL BLUE marks the impressive debut of a fresh and original voice in fiction.
Industry Reviews
"'Royal Blue' is an impressive first novel....This could have been an unrelentingly grim tale, but, in fact, it is funny and acutely observed. The knowledge that so much of the story is based on the struggles of Oxenburg's fractured early life adds greatly to the poignancy, but there is no gratuitous wallowing in misery. The final mood is upbeat, offbeat and tolerant of the human condition."
Attallah
"A testament to Oxenberg's powers of survival, the novel is, at best, reminiscent of early Françoise Sagan--evocative and surprisingly funny."
Times Literary Supplement (01/30/1998)
"Cynics will want to knock it, considering the pedigree it comes from, but that will be tough because [the novel]'s version of a bad and privileged childhood is funny, fetching, and full of gorgeous writing with a deep, tugging undercurrent of melancholy. Its intimate rendering of wealth without cliché is a triumph--imagine Evelyn Waugh rewriting 'Eloise'. For a first novel, what's most remarkable is that there's not a bum sentence in the entire thing."
Book jacket - Bret Easton Ellis
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