Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria Book

I enjoyed this book - it was a fascinating glimpse at the intertwined and separate lives of these five women.

At times, however, I was disappointed at how much had been glossed over. Some of that, I grant, was necessary as discussing the complete lives of five women in a reasonable-sized book could not have been done in any great detail.

It could have, however, been improved in a few ways

1 - put a complete rather than simplified family tree - when the author was referring to other cousins, uncles, mothers, offspring, grandchildren, siblings etc., I kept going back to the family tree only to find that they weren't designated. Perhaps a simplified family tree on the main page followed by more detailed family trees of each branch of royalty could've served the purpose.

2 - USE JUST ONE NAME - Alexandra Romanov, for example was referred to as Alecky, Alix, Alexandra, Alexandra Feodorovna among other names - similarly, Marie of Romania was both Missy and Marie and then later Meddy.

3 - Maps - As these cousins were spread out all over Europe and the landscape thereof has changed substantially since the time of their reigns, maps of their countries at the time (and how they changed - Marie of Romania's land nearly doubled following WWI) would've given me a better picture of the situation.