Sarah, Duchess of York arrives for the wedding ceremony of Britain’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and US actress Meghan Markle at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, in Windsor, on May 19, 2018. Image: Gareth FULLER / POOL / AFP.
A royal read: Fergie strikes deal to write a second Mills & Boon book
After Fergie’s first book, ‘Her Heart For A Compass’, was published, the duchess revealed that she is set to write another one.
Sarah, Duchess of York arrives for the wedding ceremony of Britain’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and US actress Meghan Markle at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, in Windsor, on May 19, 2018. Image: Gareth FULLER / POOL / AFP.
Sarah Ferguson, known as Fergie or the Duchess of York has revealed that she has signed another book deal with Mills & Boon just days after the release of her first romance novel with the publisher.
Fergie’s second Mills & Boon book
According to Wales Online, Fergie’s first book, Her Heart For A Compass, is loosely based on the life of her ancestor Lady Margaret Montagu Douglas Scott, which has received mostly negative reviews in the press after hitting the shelves on Tuesday, 3 August.
But Sarah has said she and co-author Margarete Kaye, who has written more than 60 books, remain “unified” behind the work.
Talking on Radio 4’s Front Row, Fergie said: “People try to put Fergie into a box, or Sarah or the Duchess into a box, saying ‘look at her, why is she doing this, why is she doing that?’
“We all have self-doubt. But it was really exciting to grow together in friendship and collaboration and we’re both very unified together in this book Her Heart For A Compass. So much so, we’ve signed our next book deal.”
Her Heart For A Compass
Fergie said that the COVID-19 pandemic gave her the opportunity to write the book, which she claims to have been thinking about for more than 15 years.
She told the show’s host Nick Ahad: “The pandemic also tapped me on the shoulder and said are you going to waste your life and never do what you want to do? Are you going to be in the front line helping people, nurses, NHS workers? I believe Lady Margaret would have done that, she would have risen to the challenge.
“I wondered whether it’s time to give me my own voice, and I wonder if Lady Margaret is helping me do that? I think she is.”
Fergie spoke again about the parallels between her red-headed heroine and her own life, including how they both find freedom in America.
“I believe that any good storyteller includes journeys that parallel their own life,” she said. “It’s really a total work of fiction. On the other hand, it’s rather like Who Do You Think You Are?, the TV show. Telling my ancestry of my grandmothers, my maternal and paternal grandparents.”
The 500-pager also draws on the duchess’s own relationship with the press, as Lady Margaret, who is banished from polite society after fleeing an arranged marriage, first becomes the darling and then the target of the Victorian-era press.
Going to the US
She also opened up about the impact British newspaper headlines had on her mental health.
“When you have had lines that say ‘82% would rather sleep with a goat than Fergie’ it’s very demoralising. Also, what about the Duchess of Pork? That was a good one. It took me 10 years of real mental problems to get over the fact he thought I was fat.”
Fergie said she finally met the man who had come up with the derisive moniker at a newspaper event. Describing the experience, she said: “He was the cause of my demise into a big problem with food. And yet, he didn’t mean it, it was all just to sell papers.
“When I was lucky enough to get a job in America, I got off the airplane and it was really fascinating. The scrutiny wasn’t there really. They really accepted me as me.
“I think that’s why I’m so excited about Lady Margaret going to America because she certainly felt the same thing.”
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