From the Introduction...

Sweetly two-dimensional “Princess Kate” was the image that tabloids the world over traded on, despite the grim reality of what happened to the last British princess given the fairy-tale treatment. Blonde blue-eyed Diana was Cinderella, a similarity not lost on media then or now. Diana's real story, however--her marriage of convenience, her husband's infidelity, rumors of her own unfaithfulness, struggles with fame and eating disorders, her courtship of the British press, and her eventual death after being chased by paparazzi--is distinctly not the happy fairy tale everyone hoped for.

Perhaps the best way to make sure that the fairy tale doesn't become the expectation is to talk about real princesses and to stop turning their lives into fairy tales. [...]

For each of the women described in the following pages, I've tried to strip away the myth and portray something as close as possible to the real person. But history is only as accurate as those who record it, and that goes double when the subject is a woman. I've made every effort to track down stories from the most reliable sources, but, as with any reconstructing of the past, some of the tales must be chalked up to rumor, gossip, and assumption.

Nevertheless, here are the stories of real princesses and real women. They may begin once upon a time, but they don't always end happily ever after.