Divine’s Choice. THE NEW NOVEL BY ALASTAIR CARTHEW
Divine’s Choice, the New Novel by New Zealand author Alastair Carthew. Divine’s Choice – After the Windsors, it’s ALL BLACK, is a saga set in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Australia in 2023, parodying the English royal family and the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team.
It’s a romantic adventure of forbidden love between an English princess and an All Black player and how an eccentric Queen of England and her crazy Norwegian husband plot, scheme and fight to prevent Princess Divine, heir to the English throne, from marrying her lover.
The fate of the English royal family’s grip on the throne hangs in the balance.
To add to her royal troubles, Queen Liliana reigns over a disgruntled English public and a revolt by the three remaining British Commonwealth countries, New Zealand (known here as Proud), Australia and Canada, to leave and become independent republics.
The Plot
Her sole heir to the throne, Princess Divine, falls in love with Joshua MacGregor, a humble New Zealand farmer and brilliant All Black forward. She rejects Queen Liliana and King Filip’s choice of an English aristocratic English rugby player to become her chosen husband.
Prince Divine runs away to New Zealand (which changed its name to Proud in 1987 due to New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy) but is kidnapped back by her maniacal father, who thinks he is a Viking.
Royal Machovillian shenanigans still fail to marry Prince Divine off. After the 2023 Rugby World Cup final between England and the All Blacks (surprising result), she elopes, again, with Joshua.
King Filip leads an English and Australian military force to bring Divine home. A momentous battle is fought at a restored Maori pa (fortress) in New Zealand against a Maori gang, Afghan refugees, elderly mercenaries and even a fabricated extinct moa. The fight ends in a truce, and Divine returns home.
But the royal mischief continues, resulting in Divine, surprisingly, becoming Queen. The English public awaits an heir, but none is forthcoming.
The plot twists and turns, with surprise royal antics; unusual manoeuvrings by Australia, New Zealand and Canada to leave the Commonwealth. There are royal weddings the likes of never seen before and a cunning Australian Aborigine prime minister plotting revenge against New Zealand.
At 424 pages laced with wicked humour, Divine’s Choice will hold your attention until the final outrageous conclusion.
Order on Amazon, AmazonKindle or through your local New Zealand library through Wheelers on the links below.
ILLUSTRATIONS
These pictures depict how I imagine key characters in Divine’s Choice would look.
They are pure figments of my imagination and bear no semblance to people living or dead. They are not included in the book.
When writing, I need to describe the characters, which I have done in Divine’s Choice, but I thought bringing them to life in pictures would be just as satisfying.
