This was an interesting take on Prince Albert Victor who is usually overlooked by history. In this story, the relationship between Prince Albert and his tutor is examined.

I loved to read such a display of diversity in historical fiction. While I sometimes felt lost and the plot moving a bit too slow, there were still parts of it that I enjoyed immensely

*Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review..* 

The Prince of Mirrors is a heartbreaking tale of love and mental illness set in a historical setting. 

From the blurb I expected to adore this book but sadly I didn’t. I think my issues come mainly with my Bordem throughout. I slogged through 60% before I had to skim read until the end. 

I wanted to adore the characters and while my heart broke for Jem, I hated Eddie. Which also soured my enjoyment. 

Overall- This book had so much potential but it just didn’t meet it.

This is beautiful piece of historical fiction which blends facts with imagination and looks at Prince Albert, the German Prince and love of Queen Victoria's life. It explores duty and demands of a royal life and what happens when one learns to let go a little.

I was a little disappointed with this one, I expected amazing things from the synopsis but ended up finding the book just boring, I felt like it had potential, and maybe it just wasn't for me, but I found it very confusing.

Prince Albert Victor, known as Eddy, is next in line to the throne after his father, Bertie. But his grandmother is Queen Victoria and she’s not going anywhere yet. His father considers Eddy an unsuitable candidate for future glory and Eddy himself is not all that keen. Sent away to sea, tutored rigorously, shoehorned into Cambridge, Eddy tries his best. Not that his best is ever good enough. His younger brother, Georgie, though no intellectual, has far more go about – him which is just as well since Albert Edward is the king that never was.

Though his life is short it is filled with rumours and speculation. Did he attend the house in Cleveland Street where the girls are all Mary-Anns? Does he enjoy rough trade? Is he in fact Jack the Ripper? The Ripper nonsense does not feature largely in this book – this novel is a largely benevolent portrait of a young, dreamy and inadequate prince.

Eddy drifts through his life incapable of the concentration required for serious study and not sufficiently interested to apply himself. He is an outsider – required to pretend to be a normal student, which he isn’t, and expected to act like an heir to the throne, which is beyond him. When Jem Stephen is hired as his personal tutor though, Eddy’s life perks up. Jem is the ace face. Handsome, clever, witty, sporty, big, blue eyed and poetic, he is all things to all men. Eddy is smitten. All he wants is Jem’s love, which Jem is willing to give – as long as things don’t get physical. Jem is perfectly happy to get physical with other young men, just not the prince.

Years go by. Jem suffers an accident which affects his brain. Eddy is required to choose a wife. Neither of these events will have happy consequences. Ultimately, Jem is confined to an asylum and Eddy contracts influenza. This is not a spoiler as the endings to their stories are already in the public domain. The way those endings are reached and the twists and turns along the way are the meat of this novel. Eddy is a sympathetic character – so privileged, yet having no real life of his own and no one in his own sphere who loves him for who he is. His father is either angry, despairing or distant, and even his mother would be disgusted by his true character if she knew it. Only Jem Stephen, a man now out of his reach, accepts the real Eddy. 

Written in the present tense, this book is easy to read, both funny and sad, and fascinating from an historical perspective. It is also a sensitive account of a young man who is incapable of conforming to the outwardly expressed mores of his circle and age. Of course, it is heavily fictionalised and we can never know the innermost truths of the matter, but this is certainly an enjoyable account of what might have gone on behind the scenes at Sandringham.

I felt like this book had potential, and maybe it just wasn't for me, but I found it very confusing. I think it was mostly the authors writing style. It was so descriptive and every sentence was so drawn out, I felt it took all meaning out of the book. Kind of a similar feeling to reading a text book.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It gives an insight into the Victorian world of emphasis on doing one's duty and on the other hand the utter depravity of some of the upper/ ruling class. Too much sodomy for my liking. A tear jerker of an ending though.

This fact-fiction historical novel is an emotive portrait of queer loneliness in Victorian high society, following Prince Eddy, who was second in line to the British throne, and Jem Stephen, his love interest and tutor at Cambridge. The prince finds temporary shelter in the liberal cloisters of the university, but the walled garden he longs for, where he can create his own family out of the public eye, is harder to find.

The book is at its best portraying the feeling of being trapped by the expectations placed on the royal family. “People such as us are like dogs on a very long chain. We imagine we are free but then the chain is tugged and we must face the truth,” says Eddy’s mother.

The focus is on the upper-class characters, but we see sensitive if brief portrayals of wider society too. Particularly poignant is Rose, a middle-class woman cast out by her Scottish family for getting pregnant. She becomes a shared and frequently-ignored misteress between Eddy and his brother. In this and other things, the story does not shy away from Eddy’s darker side, his happiness to use and discard those around him, but his portrayal is almost entirely sympathetic. The effect pushes into sentimentality.

The novel wears its period lightly, with occasional nods to Victorian phrasing or period detail giving flavour without making the book difficult to read or distracting from the main focus, the interior life of Eddy and Jem. The closeness of the narrative voice to the thoughts and feelings of the two leads creates immense pathos and emotional power, though it is sometimes confusing which character is being followed.

The Prince of Mirrors is ideal for fans of The Crown looking for a Victorian prequel.

An engaging and intriguing fictional look into a historical figure. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm sure there are plenty of historical fictions fans that would enjoy reading this.

This is a brilliantly written historical extrapolation of the rather mysterious and yet notorious Prince Albert Victor, grandson of Queen Victoria, second in line to the throne. Clark dives deeply into the episodes that appear to define the prince’s life—the poor student, the dullard, the naval cadet, the good brother, the voluptuary. The prince was also named in the Cleveland Street Scandal, a male brothel, and suspected of being Jack the Ripper (“The Final Solution” by Stephen Knight).

At the heart of the novel is his relationship with his tutor and lifelong friend James Kenneth Stephen. Their relationship shapes and helps to define both young men, “Jem” and “Eddy.”  Clark deftly pulls together the disparate elements that are only a glimmer of who the real Albert Victor might have been, giving his story emotional depth and deeper context.

I found the novel emotionally satisfying, and it gave me a better picture of an era I don’t know much about. Beautiful cover, gorgeous writing.

“The young man’s suit is a poem to tailoring; his proud valet can recite every pocket, pleat and tuck of it…”

thank you NetGalley and Fairlight Books! Apologies for the lateness of this review...

Great story. Touching and fascinating. The writing really makes the story come alive. Good one!!!   

Great story. Touching and fascinating. The writing really makes the story come alive. Good one!!!

Alan Robert Clark’s “The Prince of Mirrors” immediately catches the reader’s attention with his opening prose.  Intrigue, emotion, angst – all wove completely through the prologue.  

The following pages proved less interesting. While the chapters served to provide some rather disturbing background on the life of Eddy, it seemed the largest point was to depict great dysfunction within the royal family – and many of its members.  The left a disquiet in this reviewer which was not pleasant in a book engaged for distraction. Further the constant shift between past and present tense in the prose made for uneven flow of the text. 

The story details a private relationship between heir apparent Prince Albert Victor and his tutor Jem, Jem’s decent into mental illness and its impact on their relationship. Mostly it relates the terrible dysfunction of Queen Victoria’s immediate issue particularly through the turbulence between future King Edward VII and “Eddy”, Prince Albert Victor and how Eddy navigates the troubled waters that are his life.

A hearty recommendation is not forthcoming.  The Prince of Mirrors, historically accurate to large degree, is not an enjoyable missive.

A thoroughly engaging read concerning Prince Eddy and his relationship with his Cambridge tutor, Jem Stephen. It explores the constraints of the monarchy with the morals of the day. A clever blend of fact and fiction, this had me captivated from the opening page. Recommended for lovers of historical fiction.

“You’ll be alright now?”

“I’ll be alright.”

My heart and soul has been crushed. What have you done to me, dear Author?

Such gift with words, a few lines, and a few scenes are enough to make your heart bleed. Part fiction and part fact, Prince of Mirrors paints an intimate portrait of the Prince life and all he went through, everyone he met and how it changed his life and perspective. All the relationships he had and their impact. A tale of shouldering heavy expectations, finding self-identity and living under the crushing rules of society.

I absolutely love that the author decided to chronicle the Prince’s life and not specifically write about the scandals and speculations. He made the Prince not THE prince but a human, a man, a soul living a difficult life. He told a story you cannot forget once you close the book, you can’t let it go and as if you come across the mention of Prince Albert ever again, you will remember this human and you will empathize and you will feel like you have been there all that time. I have never before much heard about Prince Albert and now he’s made into a man I can’t forget. Kudos to Mr. Clark for doing a marvelous job of depicting mental illness and LBGTQ+ representation.

All the characters had so much life in them from his brother, father, Jem, May, Helene, his mother, Dalton etc. Every time they interacted, you don’t even feel like this can hit but it does – it hits you hard. It will make you smile. It will you cry too. Oh, how it will make you cry.

Especially the relationship shared between the Golden boy, Jem Stephen and his student the Prince, Eddy. They have such a great love, they don’t even kiss yet what they share is so much more meaningful. This relationship breaks your heart to pieces and then unexpectedly starts to glue them only to tear it to pieces again. Oh, how they have made me cry. Their relationship was one of the best parts of the book.

I wish more people had read it and given it a chance. Such a good book and so beautifully written. I’ll never be able to capture in words the kind of journey this book takes you on.

P.S Many thanks to Net Galley and the Publisher to allow me access to the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not sure how to review the book. I read the first page and the writing style was... well I am not sure but for some reason it put me off a little. I will try again at some point but at the moment it has been shelved.

There is a curious figure in the British monarchs' family tree: grandson of Queen Victoria and uncle to King George VI (whom you might know from "The Kings Speech"), himself father to Queen Elizabeth II: Prince Albert Victor, called "Eddy" - raised as the heir, but dead before he would ever sit on the throne. There are some major controversies surrounding his figure, the wildest of which is the idea that he could have been Jack the Ripper. This book, however, takes a look at a less scandalous (for today's minds) and more believable side of him - his (presumed) homosexuality. 

The novel is sold as a romance story, but that fell short for me. His mentor and love interest is James "Jem" Kenneth Stephen, another real historical figure (who, by the way, was Virginia Woolf's cousin). But I will get to the two of them in a bit. At first, the good points of the novel: I liked the fact that Eddy was not heroic or particularly smart, and did not even want to become king. That was unexpected. I also liked the talk about the politics and complications of dating the heir to the throne of the British Empire. And Jem's mental health was also an important part of the novel. 

But that is where my problems with it started: nothing is ever spelled out. I guessed anxiety, and it took until the afterword for the author to make explicit that he is actually bipolar. Same with many other things: it is not even made clear in the beginning why Eddy is so important. One could just as easily believe he is to inherit a large family business or maybe a small dukedom. It takes forever for the book to outwardly explain that he is to become THE king. So many things are just implied, and I don't even want to know how much I missed because of that. Which brings me to the love story. Yes, they write letters to each other which are pretty saucy considering the time, and Eddy being a prince, and homosexuality being illegal and all that. But other than that? Both sleep with other men, so that is not a problem. And the one sex scene between them is first of all really vague and does not go into detail, and secondly, it could just be a fever dream (or otherwise be real, but denied the entire time). In any case: I did not buy the romance between them, which was pretty disappointing for a book sold as a romance. I expected something a little different. But with that out of the way, it is still a great book!

You can give me any historical novel about an obscure member of any royal family and I will immediately want to read it, which is how I got my hands on this one. There is nothing more intriguing than the lives of those who disappear from history well before their time is up - especially those who were supposed to go onto great things, such as we see here. It's no surprise that Eddy dies at the end of it - it's historical fact, after all. Frankly, I think you would be doing yourself a bit of a disservice if you didn't know that before hand. If you didn't, this book ends rather abruptly and you'll be left offended and unfulfilled.

However, I did know that, so it gave me a bit of an insight and I could see foreshadowing where those who didn't would not. Before reading this I took a quick peek at Prince Albert Victor's Wikipedia page, which was largely very helpful. Because, if you hadn't noticed, there is no mention of the prince being anything other than heterosexual in the book summary. Thus, you would likely be a very shocked reader when all of a sudden he's in a quite intimate position with another man - and there are many of those scenes, that pop up often with very little warning at all. 

The first thing I noticed was that this book is split into two different perspectives - that of Prince Albert Victor, known as Eddy, and that of Jem Stephen, his tutor. Because it takes place over several years and across many different locations in the UK, you get a nice little timestamp to go with each new chapter. However, I wish that there was also a little subtitle that stated who's chapter we were about to read - sometimes it took nearly half a page before I realised I was imagining the wrong character. Especially since some of the secondary characters intermingled between the two.

The writing is okay. Nothing special when it comes to historical novels, however. The dialogue seemed a bit too modern compared to the prose. It did make the life of a royal sound terribly dull - which I imagine at some points it is, but I have nearly always found royal life interesting, so if I say it sounded boring...well, it probably is. The characters themselves were okay. Jem seemed a bit full of himself at first which made it hard to like him. As for Eddy, I found that it was also difficult to get to know him as a person as the character exploration is really only skin deep. There isn't much plot line though, to be quite honest. Just an awful lot of intimate sex scenes which made me wonder if the author had done any research on what makes a good sex scene at all. Some of it was truly cringeworthy. It was interesting to see the relationship between the two characters though. There is never any confirmation that they have an attraction to each other, and all of a sudden Eddy is doing his best to make Jem jealous of the other men that float through his life. An interesting thing to note though is that even though Jem is Eddy's tutor, there isn't really any mention of their relationship outside of their attraction to each other. It's almost as if instead of showing the progression of their relationship, from all angles (not just the sexual fantasy ones), we only get to see the parts where they are lusting after one another. 

Which comes to my next observation. This isn't really a historical novel, or at least a historical novel that you would expect it to be. The plot line of the story isn't about Eddy and his relationship with his father, the queen, the kingdom, or his path to the throne. It could really be any old decade, or any old century. It is much more about the romance of the intimate relationship between these two men rather than their place in history. It's almost like it's coincidental that Eddy is the heir presumptive of the throne. It's because of this that I'm doing my best not to critique it quite so much as a historical story, because ultimately it is not. Also, it is way too smutty to even focus on any other aspect. 

I do feel for both of these characters though. Not only because they are both non-straight men in a world that isn't even close to accepting it, but also because they can't have a happy ending - and they know it. They don't even attempt to want it because they know it isn't even in the realm of possibility. Jem is well aware that his position and relationship to Eddy makes anything more than friendship impossible. Eddy knows that he is expected to ascend the throne one day, which means that he must marry and produce an heir, and soon, to avoid suspicion. They don't even try to be together, which is heartbreaking on its own. Eddy spends his time doing his very best to find a girl that he doesn't hate. He must settle for what he does not want, but willingly gives in anyway, because it's his duty to the crown. However, when it comes to May - the future Queen Mary - I do think that eventually, he would have come around to loving her. It's a bit clear early on that Eddy isn't so much homosexual as he is bisexual - or even pansexual, I would argue. Still, his heart lies with Jem and he can't have him. Jem's story is almost sadder - he gets sent to an asylum and it doesn't appear that he will live a happy life at all. In this particular book, he is portrayed as the sad gay man who must simply be satisfied with what he has, and will never have what will truly make him happy. He actually ends up dying within three weeks of Eddy's death because of his broken heart. I do think they were meant for each other, but society simply couldn't let them be.

I did start this book a little disappointed because it wasn't what I hoped it would be. But once I did start to clue in, my ideas changed about how I expected it to portray the story. In some parts, it is clear the author isn't exactly aiming for accuracy, but illustration in the actions of his characters. If you are looking for a great historical novel, I would suggest looking elsewhere. But if you are looking for a forbidden love that can never come to fruition, and the story of two men who are forced to go down separate paths of life, then I would suggest this. Because it doesn't matter what century this story lives in - at the end of the day, it's not about the line of accession or their untimely deaths - it's about two parallel lines that fate has forced apart.

This book is based on  the life of Prince Albert Victor (Eddy), the eldest son of King Edward VII and grandson of Queen Victoria. This fictional account presumes the rumours about his homosexuality were true. It sure makes for an interesting version of his life, whether there is some truth in it or not.

It took me a long while to get into this novel. For the first half the book I struggled to connect with Eddy or any of the other characters, but I found more of a connection with Eddy especially in the second half of the book. It is hard to pinpoint why, but maybe Eddy became more real to me as the events of his life unfolded. However, I really did not like the way Jem Stephen was written that much. I just did not really believe his story arc and I just did not find him that interesting. 

Overall, this novel was well written and engaging enough and I would happily read more from this author.

2.5 stars? Maybe 2.75, maybe 3.

I’m not sure how to rate a book that was read during a book slump. 

So without further ado:

DIVERSITY IN HISTORICAL FICTION:

I don’t think it’s a surprise that The Gentleman’s to Vice and Virtue  by Mackenzi Lee got so much hype last summer. Introducing LGBTQIA+ characters in a historical setting reinforces the fact that gay people existed back then and that’s important. The main character in this book, Eddy, is bisexual, whereas the love interest, Jem, is gay. 

I really enjoyed how this book explored the two’s sexuality in this historical context, how both were uncertain of what exactly they identified as, what their sexual preferences were, etc. And I loved how the setting of the story had an effect in their exploration and questioning of these identities. And I’m impressed by the way Clark dealt with the characters’ adversity regarding that. On another note, the main character, Eddy, seemed to sleep with every person who breathed in his vicinity and to fall in love with pretty much every character showing interest in him –despite claiming wholeheartedly through narration that his heart belonged to Jem—and I’m not sure if that was intended to be a personality trait (ie. Eddy just generally being a promiscuous guy and naïve concerning matters of the heart) or just bad bisexual representation. 

Aside from introducing LGBTQ+ characters to the story, there was also bipolar representation in this, which I really appreciated, because I love seeing mental illnesses represented in history, at a time where these mental illnesses weren’t understood as well. I especially love seeing representation of the more stigmatized mental illnesses – bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, double personality disorder, etc. I do think however that it could have been explored more and that a lot of the times, it felt like the author didn’t really do his research on the disorder and just looked up the general definition of what bipolar disorder is. For instance, Jem would be described to be going through a manic episode, but we wouldn’t really explore his thoughts, his emotions, his actions, during the episode—just that he lived through them.

Jem, the love interest, is also defined as being “big” and though at first it seems more that it’s meant that he’s very muscular, over the years he gains weight, and it’s suggested that he’s big because he’s plus-sized. I’m not sure if I would categorize that as representation so I’m just mentioning it offhandedly here. Despite this, fat-shaming that’s never been rebuked is present in this novel in regards to the main character’s father, so this is my official trigger warning for that I guess.

THE HISTORICAL SETTING:

I don’t know much about Victorian England so it was nice to explore it a little bit. I especially liked how in the ending of the book, the author informs us on what happens to the other characters in this story and what happens to the main characters’ descendants. I’m not sure how accurate it was, but regardless, I enjoyed it and liked making connections to people in history that I did hear about.

THE FAMILY DYNAMICS:

The family dynamics between Eddy and his parents and brother were the best part about this book—especially the exploration of the relationship between father-and-son. Similarly, the one between Jem and his own father was also quite intriguing to read about. In general, these dynamics are what really highlighted the fact that this was a character-driven novel worth finishing. Without it, this book would have probably been two stars or less.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EDDY AND JEM:

The interactions between the two were so angsty and they legit caused me pain. I liked that it was unconventional, and that Jem felt he needed to sacrifice his own happiness to make something out of Eddy (or rather, I liked the way it was written). Despite all of this, as I mentioned before, Eddy seemed to fall in love with everyone who showed even remote interest in him, which kind of ruined the sincerity of it all. The relationship also felt sometimes like insta-love; this, mostly being due to the fact that the time that they fell in love with each other in Cambridge wasn’t written about but merely glimpsed over, so that we could cover the rest of their history. Despite how long reading this book felt due to the slump, I would have preferred a longer book so that I could fully feel invested in their story. I felt like I was ripped off from what the synopsis promised to be the best part about the book.

THE WRITING:

I didn’t have so much of a problem with the writing as I had a problem with the pacing. It was just very confusing and ultimately, that’s what ruined the book for me. We would constantly fast-forward through time and points of view, without offering a brief introduction to the current setting, the new point of view, anything. I got so frustrated with it because every time I felt like I finally understood what was going on, the author would skip to a different scene, a different time, a different personal and historical context all over again, without explaining you aforementioned context and leaving you to figure it out on your own through poor narration and immediate dialogue. Honestly, it felt rushed and it felt sloppy, like the author wanted to cover so much in the least amount of pages possible, that he just half-elaborated every scene, like he wasn’t really certain where he was going with this story and felt that if he changed scenes rapidly enough we’d be too confused to notice that he was just as lost as he was. I do think a lot of it could have been fixed with a good editor, more pages to the story and a more organized plot-mapping, which is what’s most unfortunate about how disappointed I am about this book.  

So, overall, I’d say that though this book had so much potential, it just fell extremely short.