I've finished reading it now. One thing that does come through loud and clear is that this is a book about Camilla. Those who buy it thinking that Junor will immediately plunge into Charles and Camilla's adultery and that she will unhesitatingly take Charles and Camila's side might be surprised. (There are parts that I, as a Diana supporter do take objection to, however there are criticisms of Charles by Junor too, specifically involving emotional deafness to his young fiancee's insecurities.)
The first eight chapters don't even mention Diana. It begins with a visit Penny makes to Poundbery, the town made reality by Charles's dreams. Penny observes a visit to the town by the Queen and Prince Philip in which the royal couple maintain a non-committal response to all they've seen, save for one little gesture by Philip.
This feeds into Junor's narrative, maintained throughout the book, that Charles was left emotionally stunted by his father's bullying, his mother's detachment, to the point of weakness, of tremendous neediness, which could only be assuaged by Camilla's love and uncritical support. She says quite late in the book that Camilla is the stronger of the two in the relationship.
However, apart from Charles's introduction to Camilla and his early dating of her while Andrew was away, he doesn't loom large in the first eight chapters. Junor is very uncomplimentary about Andrew Parker-Bowles whom she describes at various times as cold, offhand, snobbish, cruel and a womaniser. He is the Debs Delight of the title of the second chapter, and perhaps the Stuffed Stoat (an in-joke reference to the title of Chapter 6.)
The reader really gets a feeling for where Camilla comes from in this book. Her parents and their backgrounds are described, (her paternal grandfather was much-married and her father didn't really have much to do with him.) Her mother's family, the Cubitts, had money. The story of Alice Keppel and her daughter Violet Trefusis, (Camilla's great-aunt) and her love for Vita Sackville West is re-told.
Camilla had an ideal childhood, and the special bond between herself and her father, siblings, her parents' very happy marriage, their sociability, the ponies Camilla was obsessed by and her sprawling childhood home are fondly described.
Junor emphasises that Camilla's great self-confidence arises from those happy, golden years.
Also quite interesting to read about is her early if patchy education at a country boarding school, rather eccentrically run. Junor remarks that her education there and later at a Kensington boarding school left her unambitious, just wanting an upper middleclass life in the country like her mother, with horses and dogs and children.
Camilla discovered boys in her mid-teens, but apart from saying that Camilla and her friends enjoyed drinks and parties Junor writes that they weren't really part of the Swinging Sixties. She draws a discreet veil over who these boyfriends were, and indeed throughout the book she often doesn't name sources.
It is only in Chapter nine, after Camilla has married the womanising Andrew and settled down at Bolehyde (a house again lovingly described, perhaps by Camilla herself) and has her children that Charles's and the Parker-Bowles lives start to really intermingle once more, and Camilla becomes increasingly restless and unhappy.
All in all, the first eight chapters or so contained some material that I found was new and interesting. Ditto for the last four chapters or so of the book in which Camilla's charities and interest in the arts is explored. So plenty there besides the inevitable triangle!
