Books in the Queen Victoria series

The young Princess Victoria, strictly confined within the boundaries of Kensington Palace, is being moulded for her awesome future as Queen of England. The jealous and scheming Duke of Cumberland is a constant threat to her rightful accession . her mother's sinister friend, Sir John Conroy, makes her uneasy .

Yet the last years of her reign are to be momentous years. The court at Windsor, Balmoral, Osborne or Buckingham Palace is perpetually shocked by the Prince of Wales, forever in pursuit of horses, women and scandal, the heady harbinger of Edwardian years to come.

On the morning of 20th June 1837, an eighteen-year-old girl is called from her bed to be told that she is Queen of England. Then there is the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne - 'Lord M' - worldly cynic and constant companion to the queen, himself a veteran of many a latter-day scandal.

The young Queen, as well has having to endure her constant pregnancies, is in perpetual revolt against any encroachment on her position - and Albert is doing just that. Despite attempts on her life and crises like the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, her family - Albert and their nine children - is her prime concern.