Meet Me in Monaco: A Novel of Grace Kelly’s Royal Wedding

France’s Côte d’Azur and the original “wedding of the century”—the 1956 nuptials of American actress Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco—are the setting for this jewel of a novel by the authors of Last Christmas in Paris. The intermingled narratives of Sophie Duval, a struggling French perfumer; James Henderson, a British press photographer; and the future Princess Grace of Monaco conjure a heady blend of romance, tragedy, and period detail. When Grace Kelly pops into Sophie’s shop in order to escape the pursuing paparazzi at the Cannes Film Festival, they start a friendship that will last a lifetime. James Henderson, one of the pursuers, follows Grace into the shop and is smitten with the charming and clever Sophie, who has hidden the actress in her office. Their friendship and eventual romance, too, will endure a long time.