BROWNNOSE
BOOTLICKER
LONDON - First came the royal engagement. Now — 10 days later — the first book.
"William and Kate: A Royal Love Story," by the Sun newspaper's royal reporter James Clench was published Friday in Britain, the first in a slew of new titles about the relationship between Prince William and fiancee Kate Middleton.
Published by Harper Collins and the Sun — both owned by Rupert Murdoch — the book is scattered with photos by Arthur Edwards, the paper's long-serving royal photographer.
It is one of several books on the royal romance in the works ahead of the April 29 wedding at Westminster Abbey.
They include one by celebrity journalist Andrew Morton, whose 1992 book "Diana: Her True Story" rocked the Royal Family and punctured the image of Diana's fairy-tale romance with Prince Charles with its details of bulimia, depression and infidelity.
"William and Kate: A Royal Love Story" — due to be published in the U.S. on Dec. 17 — is a more reverent affair. It charts the romance between "the boy who would one day be king" and "the middle-class girl who had harboured a crush on him since her school days."
The book traces "the greatest love story of the century" from the couple's first meeting at a university in Scotland.
It claims that William's nickname for Kate was Babykins, while she called him Big Willie.
