This is my first book about any of the Britain's Royal Family. I did find it very interesting. It was about Queen Elizabeth's life before she became the Queen. Kind of a prequel, if you will. It was easy to read and really kept my interest. I do not live in the UK, so my interest is just as a passerby interest. I have read stories in the new, watched weddings and such things. This is a good book to start out with, in my opinion, if you want to start reading about the Royal Family and get a good start.

A super interesting read about Queen Elizabeth II. This book from a small British publishing home provided lots of new tidbits of information—a difficult feat!

I’ve read a lot on the Queen, her reign, and her life. This book did have some info on her younger life that was new for me. A good read for those not that familiar with young Lillibet, future Queen.

This was such a fascinating look into the life of Queen Elizabeth II. There was so much that I didn't know about her.

This was an interesting look into the early life of Queen Elizabeth II and the influences that shaped her into the enduring and respected monarch she is today.

An interesting look into Queen Elizabeth II. I didn't know a lot about her other than some cursory information gleaned from news articles so I thought this was a good look into her life. I certainly thought this was well written and an entertaining read.

This was a most enjoyable book to read. Informative and well-written. It is quite fascinating how Princess Elizabeth transformed herself into a role that she had no expectation of when growing up. Her strength of character shines through in myriad ways. Jane Dismore has done an excellent job of revealing the monarch’s personality.
My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for my honest review.

So wonderfully interesting. I found out so much new information and was very entertained a long the way.

This is an interesting new biography of the Queen. There was not much new to learn here, but the insight into her early family life was fascinating, and the whole thing was well written.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an advance copy ARC of this book.

I loved reading this new biography of the Queen's life.Well written and interesting - There were a few things in here that I didn't know already so that was great. An enjoyable afternoon being a Royalist!

I find Queen Elizabeth to be so interesting so this book is the perfected! I'm also reading it while watching The Crown tv series and am enjoying the whole picture that it is giving me!

Unlike most of the world, I've never been tremendously interested in the English monarchy. I learned enough about it in school to ace my history exams, but I am not one who will wake up early to watch a royal wedding on television and can't muster up excitement when a new baby is announced by the family. I am, however, glad to have picked up a copy of this book. I enjoyed learning more about Elizabeth, and Dismore provides what seems to be a very thorough biographical sketch of her life. *I received an advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Princess Elizabeth's Early life is truly amazing. She was an adorable child, but as a woman and then a queen there are few books that describe her childhood so well. very well done

This book covers Queen Elizabeth from before her birth to right around when Princess Anne was born. this book was so many things as you would expect with a lot of years of someone's life, packed with births, marriages, death, history, love, and the life of the rich. Also includes bombs, Hitler, Gloria Vanderbelt, tales of ghosts in the past. This book tells of how Princess Elizabeth grew up, things she went through as the youngest Queen, meeting Phillip when they were very young, how it blossomed into a love affair and then marriage. She also served in World War II and became Queen at age 10. This author did a great job giving insight to Queen Elizabeth's early life.

Much has been written about Britain’s current queen, Elizabeth II. However, in the biography Princess, it tells the story of Elizabeth’s life before she became a queen. Queen Elizabeth was never meant to be a queen. Her father was the second son of George VI. It seemed as if her uncle Edward would marry and sire heirs. When he shocked the world by abdicating the throne for the woman he loved, Elizabeth suddenly found herself the center of attention as the heir presumptive. Elizabeth finds herself with responsibilities that she does not initially want.

Princess paints Elizabeth to be reluctant to become the next queen of England. The biographer states that she would rather remain a country girl at heart. However, Elizabeth took her role as heir seriously. She is prepared to attend ceremonies and make speeches. Elizabeth is also portrayed as a no-nonsense woman and very protective of her sister, Margaret. I also found the relationship between Elizabeth and Prince Philip to be very fascinating. Elizabeth claims that Philip has been her rock throughout her life. This biography shows how supportive and steadfast Philip is to Elizabeth. Princess also emphasizes that he was a bit of prankster. This gives us a different glimpse of Philip whom most people view as stiff and rigid.

Overall, Princess paints a very compelling portrait of the early years of Queen Elizabeth II. There were times when the biography diverted from the subject and went on tangents on other people such as Prince Philip’s girlfriends. Sometimes, Princess took the gossip and tabloid route. For instance, it heavily focused on the Queen Mother being the daughter of a cook that was proposed in Lady Colin Campbell’s biography. It is obvious that the biographer believes in Lady Colin’s gossip. Therefore, I found this part of the Queen Mother’s past to be very irrelant and did not serve any purpose in Queen Elizabeth’s biography. Still, Princess is a very enlightening read for those who want to know more about the queen’s childhood.

Amazing book. Loved it from beginning to end.
Well written which kept me captivated throughout.
I will definitely be reading other books by this author

This was a detailed look at one of Royalty's most iconic women. The book was just ok...kind of dry. I had hope it would be more insightful as to how Elizabeth managed the transition from royal to queen..

A very enjoyable book to read and while I did know some of the information already, there was some new stuff that I did read. I was astonished at how long she left her kids behind for, to go off to Malta - can you imagine the outcry in today's press if Kate/William did that to their kids! Not sure the detour early on about the Queen Mother's past was needed though, that is about my only criticism of the book.

I read this really quickly as I found it fascinating. This is a good starting point to find out about the Queen as it is well researched and an easy read. Yet I did find myself looking up people who were mentioned or events that had happened to deepen my knowledge as things are skimmed over, the ending also seemed a little rushed. Great for fans of 'The Crown'.

I always felt a small connection to Queen Elizabeth II., because she was the only 'celebrity' I knew that shared my birthday. My other classmates could say that they have their birthday together with Madonna, one from New Kids on the Block or Vanilla Ice. One of my classmates was especially proud that he was born on the exact date Elvis Presley died. And me? When someone asked me about my birthday I always said: one day after H*tler, one day before Lenin and together with the British Queen.

As long as I 'know' her, she is an old lady with a hat, that seldomly smiles and is even rarely waving on the pictures. So reading about the first 26 years of her life should be quite informative. I've seen "The King's Speech", thus I knew a bit about her father and mother, and of course also why he became King in the first place. But that's about it.

This biography even tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II. mother's birth and how she became the wife of Prince Albert.
You learn about major events in their lives, and what they wore on that occasion. You come to know which presents Princess Elizabeth received for birthdays and christmas (and where this was celebrated), which subjects she was taught in, what duties and appointments she had to keep when she became Heiress Presumptive and which speeches she gave. And what fun it was to celebrate the ending of World War II, when she was allowed to mingle with the cheering crowd 'incognito' roaming the streets of London.

You hear the names of countless of relatives and/or people working for the Royals. That is sometimes a bit confusing and I constantly checked Wikipedia to read more about who is the child of whom and how are they related to Elizabeth. I did know that Elizabeth and Prince Philip are related, thanks to the 'grandmother of Europe' Queen Victoria. And after reading this book is makes perfectly sense that Elizabeth chose as a husband someone she and her family knew practically since she was born. Where else should she meet a suitable man, since she has no normal social life like her peers.

Since the brief description of the books starts with Elizabeth's love for Philip, I taught that this books will give a real inside into how they were courting. But although we follow both of their lives very closely, you learn next to nothing about their blooming relationship. Philips visits to the Royal family are stated, as well as the fact that he exchanged letters with Elizabeth and also her mother, who was then the Queen. And then at one point they somehow agreed that they were now engaged. But we don't 'witness' the actual engagement nor any single courting or even date. Probably because the sources of the author were not present themselves on those occasions, and I doubt that Elizabeth ever let someone have a peek into her personal love letters (but I'm sure she still keeps them somewhere, all the letters Philips must have written her while he was on a battleship fighting in World War II).

Thus I do understand why such personal things are not included in this biography, but at the same time it therefore feels like a compilation of many many facts (and some of them quite interesting) but not as if I got to know Queen Elizabeth so much better now. You can read between the lines a bit, and even get a glimpse at her personality as a child and teenager. But I expected a bit more I guess. I would give the book a 3.5 star rating. Since it is really really lot of work to research so many many details, and I acknowledge this effort, I round it up to 4 stars.