This is probably the 6th biography of Grace Kelly that I have read and I felt that it was easily the weakest. In fairness to Wendy Leigh, she had clearly conducted her own research and she did present some new stories and anecdotes. However it felt like she was more pre-occupied with digging up new scandals than with presenting a cohesive picture of who Grace was. She glosses over significant events such as Grace meeting Rainier, why she decided to marry him and barely mentions Grace's death. Instead we get an obsession with every sexual relationship that Grace may or may not have had.

While the book gives the impression of being well researched, when I looked up some of the footnotes it appeared that at least some of these claims were based purely on the word of someone who was the friend of a friend of someone who was now deceased. In a case like that, I feel that a reputable biographer should make it more evident that these are alleged rather than proven facts.

Leigh implies that Grace had a fling with a Paris Match photographer on the ship sailing to Monaco for her wedding. Putting aside the fact that the evidence that this ever occurred is more than weak, if it were true (as Leigh insinuates), it raises all manner of questions about what that says about Grace's feelings towards Rainier and her upcoming wedding. None of those questions are dealt with. The implication throughout is that Grace never particularly loved Rainier and that she was unhappy in her marriage from start to finish. Based on the other books that I have read, this is an over-simplified and unlikely version of events.

Here's a summary of the book: Grace Kelly was a successful actress who had a lot of affairs, sometimes with more than one person at a time. She looked very pretty in all her movies, even though she didn't like her jawline. She decided to marry Prince Rainier even though she didn't love him and she had a last fling only days before the wedding. She was very homesick after the wedding and Rainier started cheating on her almost immediately. She had several more affairs herself, including one with the husband of a friend. She was very unhappy. Some people thought she was icy and some people thought she was warm and friendly. She always believed she'd die in a car crash but she drove her car anyway and then she died.