Back in the glory days of living at Expensive Acres, when Blacklight was well enough to work, we went to the bookstores every weekend. Once the other person was done, we knew we could check certain sections and find the other one. For Blacklight? Just head to the graphic novels and science sections? For me? History. Even better, General European History (RIP Borders, much love). And it was unusual weekend when we didn’t stroll out of Borders with at least one bag and another Borders Reward 40% off coupon gone to Coupon Heaven. I had a bookshelf devoted to Eleanor Herman, Leslie Carroll, Karl Shaw, Michael Farquhar and their ilk. So any wonder while zipping past the New Non-Fiction at the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library on a mission to get the entire Naked Gun series for Blacklight I slowed down only long enough to snatch up Linda Rodriguez McRobbie’s Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings on my way to the DVD section?

Now once I was home and curling up on the bed with Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings, I had a moment of wariness. I’ve read a lot of these real royal stories over the years. And sometimes? They’re not quite good. Even if they’re well researched. Because well, research does not always compelling writing.

Case in point. I found the wait for Kris Waldherr’s Doomed Queens: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends, From Cleopatra to Princess Di was much better than the actual book. I’ve read Doomed Queens: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends, From Cleopatra to Princess Di more than once just to make sure I was giving the book a fair shake. It’s okay but it’s like a bag of classic Hershey’s Kisses when you really want to savor a handful of Lindt Almond truffles. Chocolate yes, but not what you need to really satisfy your craving. On a scale of Sex With Kings/Sex With the Queen (bought them in hardcover brand new from Borders= excellent) to oh…Doomed Queens (interlibrary loan first read, picked up for a $1 at a library sale just because later on=meh) would Princesses Behaving Badly fall?

Even though I had two true crimes meets history books on the nightstand, the adventures of Leland Stanford and his pet photographer Eadweard Muybridge, the Hall-Mills murder and F. Scott Fitzgerald did not exist once I opened Princesses Behaving Badly and started to read. I have Muybridge’s The Horse in Motion, 1878 framed at my Company X work desk right next to my HPLHS membership certificate. And Netflix knows I’m a sucker for true crime shows like Deadly Women. That night, I turned off the bedroom light with the greatest reluctance.

Why? I was plunging into well written and researched mini-biographies of women, some who I know from reading or Stuff You Missed In History Class podcasts to ladies I had never encountered before. As a person who has read a vast number of true royal stories, mad props to Linda Rodriguez McRobbie for not just going down the easy path of “Pauline Bonaparte? She could give  Santa Ho Ho Ho lessons” and “Caroline of Brunswick was so nasty…”. It was so refreshing to see both these ladies treated with respect and not just meat holes for poking. Crass yes, but most people think of them as just sluts. Sure, I might have rolled my eyes at mentions of Princess Diana and her daughter in law the Duchess of Cambridge because that comes as naturally to me as breathing, but I was reading about princesses who actually did something besides get on the cover of every darn tabloid in existence. Don’t believe me? Read about Sarah Winnemuca and then we’ll talk about who did the greater good. <crosses arms and raises eyebrow at the People’s Princess cult> And who knew the Punk Princess I used to read about in Vanity Fair became an accomplished business woman who could teach fellow 1980s icon Donald Trump a thing or thirteen.

If I hadn’t just spend a hoarded Amazon gift card on Blacklight’s birthday present (damn you Police Squad: The Complete Series DVD), Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings would have been snapped up for Mr Kindle in a heart beat. For full price. And given my tight book budget and love of a good bargain? I can’t give any other recent real royal stories books that high a praise.