The Queen’s Coronation

Jennifer Ryan

AS Queen Elizabeth II prepares for the Coronation, a spectacular event that will mark out the rest of her days, three other young women are also looking to find their own way in an ever-changing world.

Former non-fiction books editor Jennifer Ryan (pictured below) – who has now found success writing fiction –transports readers back in time to the busy months before the Queen took the throne where we meet three women whose work at Buckingham Palace is the springboard for what they hope will be a better future. 

There’s a lot to get done ahead of the queen’s coronation in the early months of 1953… and even more so when your livelihood is at stake. Young, naïve and ambitious, Lucy Jones is a junior wardrobe assistant who dreams of being a famous singer, so when she meets a handsome, wealthy man at the palace who promises her future stardom, she cannot help but fall for his charms.

Caroline Brimstone, meanwhile, loves her role as the queen’s Assistant Dresser but behind closed doors she is struggling with a husband who gambles away their money, and is constantly fighting for a better life for herself and her daughter. 

On a trip to Balmoral in Scotland, Caroline meets a man from her past who is everything that she longs for and could be her key to a new and better future.

And then there’s Miranda Miller, an undercover journalist from America who is working as a temporary secretary with the Coronation Office’s planning committee and is secretly gathering information for an inside scoop on the royal occasion and could be the key to keeping her job… the only thing she has left.

But they are all running away from their own demons and, in order to succeed, they must shed their feelings of shame, trust themselves, and be brave enough to reclaim their lives. As Queen Elizabeth takes the throne and a new era begins, will the three women learn to join forces, find new strength, and build their own future?

The Queen's Coronation is a heartwarming tale of female resilience and friendship as the three palace workers meet the challenges that still existed for many women in the 1950s and find the courage to fight for the future they want rather than the one that society expects of them.

Using the drama, chaos and excitement of the months leading up to the Coronation, Ryan blends fact and fiction into an emotion-packed exploration of not just the start of a queen’s groundbreaking reign but ordinary women finding their feet at an equally life-changing crossroads in their lives. A right royal treat!
(Pan, paperback, £9.99)