The Perfect Last-Minute Gift for Royal Lovers

Welcome to So Many Thoughts, a semi-weekly newsletter about royal style and the other parts of life I want to think through with you. You can subscribe here and follow me on Instagram at @EHolmes. Thank you!

Hello! I’m a bit up in my feelings today — it is the fourth (!) anniversary of So Many Thoughts. It all started on a snowy holiday morning when I was breastfeeding my second son, Oliver. I was scrolling Instagram, naturally, and the Cambridges’ holiday card popped up in my feed. “I have so many thoughts on this,” I said…to myself. On the fly, I posted three screenshots, not realizing it would be a format I still use today. The first post had “So Many Thoughts” stripped across the bottom, the second had a bunch of tiny text bubbles, and the third had my “But mostly” takeaway.

The best part? It was done in HRH blue! Meant to be! (You can read more of the SMT origin story in this piece I wrote for Katie Couric’s newsletter.)

I wish I could say it was a strategic launch and that I knew what I was doing right then and there. I didn’t — and it shows. I cringe at a lot of those early ones. But I’m so grateful for the chance to learn and grow, and very proud of where our community is at now.

But mostly (had to!): Thank you for engaging with So Many Thoughts and for joining me on this journey. You have made this all possible and I’m deeply appreciative. I’m so excited to see what the next year holds.

Below you’ll find a conversation with the delightful hosts of the podcast Royally Obsessed about their new book, Royal Trivia. It comes out on Tuesday and would make the best stocking stuffer. Pre-order it today (pre-orders are incredibly important to authors). Also, an update on Princess Charlene and a few more royal headlines in the SMT Royal News Roundup.

Have a wonderful weekend, friends.

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I’m Royally Obsessed with the New Book Royal Trivia

Where are my last-minute shoppers at? If you’ve got a royal lover on your list, I’ve got you covered. Royal Trivia: Your Guide to the Modern British Royal Family by Rachel Bowie and Roberta Fiorito comes out on Tuesday — and its stocking-sized! I’ve been a loyal listener to (and guest on) their podcast, Royally Obsessed, and have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of this book.

With five sections, one devoted to each the Cambridges, the Sussexes, Princess Diana, Prince Charles and the Queen, Royal Trivia manages to be simultaneously bite-sized and in-depth. Very SMT in spirit, I think. True to its name, the book is organized around bolded questions, suitable for a casual game of trivia. But flip through the pages and you’ll find paragraph after paragraph of answers, chock full of context and background.

“You can get a pretty quick answer to something that is potentially complicated,” Rachel told me. “We try to parse that out and make it very clear so that you can be the expert yourself.”

I couldn’t resist asking Roberta and Rachel a few questions ahead of their big launch. Our chat below, edited slightly and condensed for clarity.

Let’s start at the start! Tell me how this book came to be.

Roberta: We had been approached to write a straightforward trivia book. In my mind, that is very much cut and dry, like “question” and then “answer.” But what Rachel and I found when writing this is that there is just so much context around the royals. There's a bigger picture to everything they do. We really wanted to make our answers a lot meatier, to build something that's a hybrid between a biography and kind of a fun trivia book.

This book feels like a chat with a friend. Talk to me a bit about the tone.

Rachel: We really wanted it to be positive, constructive, and factual. Our main goal was to clear up a lot of the headlines, because there are so many headlines that are misconstruing a lot of the facts.

Roberta: We do cover a lot of heavier things in the book, like Meghan and Harry's exit and the Oprah interview. But I think ultimately, the goal at the end of the day is that this is an escape for a lot of people. Because I also think that if we've learned anything from the past two years, it's that it has been a very lonely and hard time for so many.

What did you learn from reporting Royal Trivia? Was there anything that changed how you felt about the British royal family?

Rachel: Kate and William and Harry and Meghan, their lives are more familiar because we've grown up and experienced that with our generation. But going back in time, being able to dig into the early years of Diana, Charles, the Queen, I think has just been really enlightening. Diana came from so much wealth, even though she's called a commoner. Or the fact that the Queen Mother had such a role in Charles' life when he wasn't really given that much in terms of nurturing from his parents. It's really interesting. It's history.

There are so many dramatized portrayals of the royal family out there now, including The Crown and Spencer. Did writing this book change the way you view those?

Rachel: It’s the constant struggle with the royals that I think we all have: how to really think logically about what is truth and what is just hearsay, conjecture. When you see all these fictional accounts, it just underscores the need for first-person accounts. So I think that's where it's really exciting to look forward to things like Prince Harry's memoir or any sort of nugget that gives you something that feels a little bit more from the actual source.

Roberta: That is one of the big reasons we really did lean on first-person accounts from the royals themselves. We want it to be fun and have little nuggets that people can pull out to kind of use at cocktail parties or whatever, and quiz their friends about. But we also wanted to, like Rachel said, debunk some of the headlines or the misconceptions about the royals.

You all wrote this book quickly! How does it feel on the eve of publication?

Rachel: Four months for the first draft. We started in January and we turned it in in May. What made it so easy is just our true passion for the topic. I have never had a hard time being like, ‘Let me spend hours and hours reading about the royals.’ I'm always able to find the time to work on all the royal related things, which is how I think you know you've discovered something that you really are passionate about.

Roberta: We’re just so excited for December 21st! I think whether you are an eagle-eyed fan who latches onto every single sighting of them or you are just now getting into royal fandom, you will find something in this book that is entertaining and you will probably learn something you didn't know before.

Thank you + congratulations, Rachel and Roberta! Pre-order Royal Trivia today wherever you get your books and look for it on store shelves Dec. 21.

GIVEAWAY! I'm giving away three copies of Royal Trivia. To enter: Scroll down + comment on this post with your all-time favorite royal moment. I'll pick three winners at random on Wednesday, 12/22 at 5pm and notify you via Facebook messenger.

***Open to US residents only.***

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SMT Royal News Roundup

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I'm hard at work on my 2021 SMT Royal Year in Review, which I’ll share in my newsletter in two weeks. Would love to get *your thoughts* on the biggest moments of the year. Hit “Join the Discussion” and leave a comment on my Bulletin page. You can also send me an email at hello@somanythoughts.com.

I'll see you back in your inboxes on Tuesday.

PS: It would mean so much if you would forward this newsletter to a friend! I cover the royals every Friday and more general style topics on Tuesdays. You can subscribe and read previous editions here.