Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark
By Karin Palshoj & Gitte Redder,
translated by Zanne Jappe Mallett
Published in Australia by Allen & Unwin
ISBN 1 74114 749 2

By LIA VAUGHN | Once upon a time, in a land far away … This pleasant book, written by two Danes and translated by a third, doesn’t quite start that way. However, it does begin with the birth in Hobart, Tasmania, of Mary Donaldson on February 5, 1972.

On the same day, the writers point out, it was at freezing point in Denmark, 16,202 kilometres away to be exact, and three-year-old Frederik was yet to learn what it was like to have a mother who was a queen, as Margrethe II had succeeded to the throne just three weeks earlier.

That Frederik and Mary would meet in a Sydney pub 32 years later and fall in love is usually called a fairytale. Fairytale, of course not, but greatly against the odds and so very romantic — which is where the hype and media hysteria began.

Continued …