The Other Princess opens with a girl’s birth and with her mother naming her Aina (difficult) due to the difficulty with her birth. Aina is the daughter of a local king inYoruba. Their village is attacked, and she is torn from her family, most of whom were slaughtered. Her fate is to either be sold as a slave or be presented in sacrifice by the people who stole her. When the decision is made to sacrifice her, an Englishman present at the ceremony asks the king of the tribe for Aina. The Englishman, in turn, presents her to Queen Victoria, and the girl is raised in close companionship with Victoria’s children and renamed Princess Sarah Bonetta Forbes.
The book does a great job in capturing Aina’s feelings on seeing a White person for the first time, at experiencing racism, the ravages of war and and the many losses she endures along the way. She comes to love Queen Victoria—until the queen decides it’s time for Aina/Sarah to marry the man Victoria has chosen for her. Then, Sarah becomes rebellious and is exiled to live with a staid family far from the throne. The novel deals well with Sarah’s appetite for learning, her love of music, her desire for independence and self-determination, the complexities of life she must deal with while dealing with her own losses—especially since her marriage returns her to Africa, a place that launches dread in her heart. As the mother of a black child, I appreciated all the girl went through to fit into her new home and then again in adapting to Africa and a new husband.
The voice in which the novel starts is appropriate for a child, but the voice doesn’t seem to age in a manner consistent with Sarah’s intellectual or emotional growth. Also, the ending seems a bit abrupt. Overall, Bryce does a great job filling in the details of a life about which little is truly known.
If you view the Masterpiece Theater series, Sanditon, you’ll see a wealthy young black woman whose lost her father and mother, though in different circumstances, and making her way on her own.
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The Other Princess: A Novel of Queen Victoria’s Goddaughter (William Morrow Paperbacks, (October 3, 2023) is available through:
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