I cannot begin to express enough about how beautiful this book is. I have never been interested in the ‘Royals’, but this was such a lovely written book about the challenges and loss Prince Harry has endured in his life. I love how genuine and authentic the book is!

Below are my favorite excerpts:  

Willy was the Heir, whereas I was the Spare. I was the shadow, the support, the Plan B. I was brought into the world in case something happened to Willy. I was summoned to provide backup, distraction, diversion, and if necessary, a spare part. Kidney perhaps. Blood transfusion. Speck of bone marrow. This was all made explicitly clear to me from the start of life’s journey and regularly reinforced thereafter.  (In the family they discuss how Pa said to Mummy the day of my birth: Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an Heir and a Spare- my work is done.)

(When describing Pa)- He was always sniffing things. Food, roses, our hair. He must’ve been a bloodhound in another life. 

(When describing Mummy’s funeral) I remember consoling several folks who were prostrate, overcome, as if they knew Mummy, but also thinking: You didn’t, though. You act as if you did…but you didn’t know her. 

My Mother legendarily said there were three people in her marriage. We didn’t understand what was going on with her and Pa, certainly, but we intuited enough, we sensed the presence of the Other Woman. I couldn’t help but feel the lack of stability, the lack of warmth and love, in our home. 

All was justified because I was a royal, and in their minds royal was synonymous with non-person. 

My memory had been spotty since Mummy disappeared, by design, and I didn’t want to fix it, because memory equaled grief.

{When 9-11 happened} Days later I turned 17. I suppose I knew the truth deep in my heart. The illusion of Mummy hiding, preparing to return, was never so real that it could blot out reality entirely. But it blotted it out enough that I was able to postpone the bulk of my grief. I still hasn’t mourned, still hadn’t cried, except that one time at her grave, still hadn’t processed the bare facts. But then I’d think: I’ll believe it (Mummy is dead) when I have proof. With solid proof, I thought, I could properly mourn and cry and move on. 

I watched several Thames Valley police officers marching back and forth. They were stationed out there because of me. But they didn’t make me feel safe. They made me feel caged. 

Club H was the perfect hideout for a teenager, but especially this teenager. When I wanted peace, Club H provided. When i wanted mischief, Club H was the safest place to act out. When I wanted solitude, what better than a bomb shelter in the middle of the British countryside? Willy sometimes tried to talk about Mummy. Club H felt like the one place secure enough to broach that taboo subject. Just one problem. I wasn’t willing. Whenever he went there…I changed the subject. He’d get frustrated. And I wouldn’t acknowledge his frustration. More likely, I couldn’t even recognize it. Being so obtuse, so emotionally unavailable, wasn’t a choice I made. I simply wasn’t capable. I wasn’t close to ready. 

(When discussing a past relationship and paparazzi)- Soon after getting to Heathrow. We were papped. I advised Chelsy to treat it like a chronic illness, something to be managed. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to have a chronic illness. I told her I understood. Perfectly valid feeling. But this was my life, and if she wanted to share any part of it, she’d have to share this too. You get used to it, I lied. Odds were, the press would cost me another person I cared about.

(When discussing his driver in Paris to see the World Cup)- On my first night in the City of Light I asked him if he knew the tunnel where my mother… I watched his eyes in the rearview, growing large. The tunnel is called Pont de l’Alma, I want to go through it. At 65mph to be precise. The exact speed that Mummy’s car had supposedly been driving. If the driver ever reviewed to another human that we’d asked him to do this, we’d find him and there would be hell to pay. [Drove through]. I asked, “Is that all of it? It’s…nothing. Just a straight tunnel”. I’d always imagined the tunnel as some treacherous passageway, inherently dangerous, but it was just a short, simple, no-frills tunnel. No reason anyone should ever die inside it. I looked out the window: Again. We went through it again. That’s enough. Thank You. It had been a very bad idea. Deep down, I’d hoped to feel in that tunnel what I’d felt when JLP gave me the police files- disbelief. Doubt. Instead, that was the night all doubt fell away. She’s dead, I thought. My God she’s really gone for good. 

I’d thought driving the tunnel would bring an end, or brief cessation, to the pain, the decade of unrelenting pain. Instead it brought on the start of Pain, Part Deux. 

(When discussing his time as a soldier)- I was also Widow Six Seven. I’d had plenty of nicknames in my life, but this was the first nickname that felt more like an alias. I could really and truly hide behind it. For the first time I was just a name, a random name, and a random number. No title. And no bodyguard. Is this what other people feel like everyday? 

I’d traveled the world, from top to bottom, literally. I’d hopscotched the continents. I’d met hundreds of thousands of people, I’d crossed paths with a ludicrously large cross-section of the planet’s seven billion residents. For 32 years, I’d watched a conveyor belt of faces pass by and only a handful ever made me look twice. This woman stopped the conveyor belt. This woman smashed the conveyor belt to bits. 

(When discussing Meghan Markle)- There was an energy about her, a wild joy and playfulness. She believed life was one grand adventure. 

(When discussing birth of son Archie)- Everything I’d been taught, everything I’d grown up believing about the family, and about the monarchy, about its essential fairness, its job of uniting rather than dividing, was being undermined, called into question. Was it all fake? Was it all just a show? Because if we couldn’t stand up for one another, rally around our newest member, our first biracial member, when what were we really? Was that a true constitutional monarchy? Was that a real family? 

Our ayurvedic doctor had advised us that, in the first minute of life, a baby absorbs everything said to them. So whisper to the baby, tell the baby your wish for him, your love. Tell. 

Why not hire your own lawyer? I stammered: You mean…are you telling me we could just….? What a thought. It had never occurred to me. I’d been so conditioned to do as I was told.

My emotions are complicated on this subject, naturally, but my bottom-line position isn’t. I’ll forever support my Queen, my Commander in Chief, my Granny. Even after she’s gone. My problem has never been with the monarchy, not the concept of monarchy. It’s been with the press and the sick relationship that’s evolved between it and the Palace. I love my Mother Country, and I love my family, and I always will. I just wish, at the second-darkest moment of my life, they’d both been there for me. And I believe they’ll look back one day and wish they had too. 

We were having a chat with Tyler Perry, the actor-writer-director. He’d sent a note to Meg before the wedding, out of the blue, telling her that she wasn’t alone, that he saw what was happening. Now, face-timing with him, Meg and I were trying to put on a brave face, but we were both a mess. Tyler saw. He asked what was up. We gave him highlights, the loss of security, the borders closing. No where to turn. Whoa. Okay, that’s a lot. But…just breathe. Breathe. That was the problem. We couldn’t breathe. Look…take my house. What? My house in Los Angeles. It’s gated, it’s secure- you’ll be safe there. I’ll keep you safe. He was traveling, he explained, working on a project, so the house was empty, waiting for us. It was too much. Too generous. But we accepted. Eagerly. I asked why he was doing this. My Mother. Your…? My Mother loved your Mother. I was caught completely by surprise. He said: After your mother visited Harlem, that was it. She could do no wrong in Maxine Perry’s book. 

Soon after our return, a hummingbird got into the house. Then a mate said: Could be a sign, you know? Some cultures see hummingbirds as spirits, he said. Visitors, as it were. Aztecs thought them reincarnated warriors. Spanish explorers called them “resurrection birds”. Whenever you see a hummingbird, what you’re actually seeing is a tiny, glittering Odysseus. 

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