Remember When . . . Monaco had no casino?
Back in the day, I decided to write a book about a British noblewoman raised as a princess in some other country. When I was 13, this country was Bratinburg, a figment of my imagination. Then when I was 15 I learned more about Monaco and fell in love. So I rewrote said story to have my darling Brook raised as a Monagasque princess.
In typical me-fashion, I just made it all up;-) Made up the royal family, made up the circumstances . . . the only thing that was accurate was the name of the principality and the fact that they spoke French. A few years later I decided that didn’t cut it so did some more intense research. And then a few years after that decided it still didn’t cut it so did some really intense research.
What I learned was that I picked a heck of a time to set a story in Monaco. If I plopped my fictitious character into the Grimaldi family, her father would have been Prince Charles–the one that Monte Carlo is named after. Her little brother would have been Prince Albert, arguably one of the most influential rulers of the tiny nation, who did a lot to lead it into modernity. During those years, they lost 90% of their land when two towns rebelled and joined Italy. It was just before the 1861 war for Italian unification, Sardinia was still their protector instead of France . . . and this was just supposed to be backstory!
I had a lot of fun subtly incorporating these domestic troubles into the story, even as my character quickly left Monaco for England. Through letters and a trip back to Monaco-ville, she got to see the struggles the Grimaldis went through as they tried to find a way to stay afloat financially with so many resources lost.
The Grimaldis’ answer was the famous casino. Think what you will about gambling, but there’s one thing I really admire about this–no Monagasque citizen is allowed to gamble. Hilarious, right? They can work there, but that’s it. Otherwise, it’s purely a means of stripping foreigners of their wealth, lol.
My heroine is torn about her family’s decision to open the casino . . . how about you?
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.