Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

An interesting read about the Mountbattens. The book seems well-researched and offers different points of view but it is not always conclusive.

Informative and addictive! This book felt nothing like a history lesson but rather a grand exploration into the lives of such fascinating people!

I truly loved this book! I came to it with very little knowledge of either the Mountbattens as individuals or their marriage - I found the whole situation surprising and interesting - the author walks you through their lives in a seemingly straightforward and unbiased way - it's an easy read and a most enjoyable one!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the review copy in return for an honest review.

Fascinating insight. Very factual, although a little dry at times. I love the Royals but this is an area I'm not familiar with and that was interesting.

I was drawn to this story after watching a documentary and not knowing much about royal history. Ah interesting read with some facts I didn’t know. If you like royal history this is worth a read!

I absolutely inhaled this. I have always been intrigued by the Mountbattens and could not put this down. So well researched and written.

Even if it's well researched and informative I found it quite dreary and struggled.
I learned something more about the Mountbattens but it was a long list of facts.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this arc, all opinions are mine.

As an Indiaphile, I'm naturally very interested in the Mountbattens and their role as the last Viceroy and Vicereine of pre-Independence India. I was thrilled to get approved for a free ARC from Netgalley as I was keen to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of this charismatic and controversial couple.

The Mountbattens and Edwina's home at Broadlands, were part of my childhood because my Grandparents lived not too far from Romsey, and my Grandfather had served in Burma with the Military Police in WW2 so he often made (rather disparaging but oddly admiring) comments about 'Mountbatten of Burma'. I remember his death at the hands of the IRA.

I know their role in the Partition of India well having read and reread Alex von Tunzelman's stunning book about the Mountbattens in India as well as Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre's excellent 'Freedom at Midnight'. I've also read their daughter Pamela's account of the same period. Personally, I prefer to leave the status of the relationships between the Mountbattens and Nehru as ambiguous and unresolved as earlier biographers have done.

I found the book to be overly detailed in some parts (the references and bibliography run to almost 20% of the book) and annoyingly repetitive in others. I also found the prurient interest in what the two got up to and who they got up to it with, annoying and intrusive. Judge them by what they did, not WHO they did. And apparently, the WHO was a very long list.

When writing a book about people who've already had several biographies written about them, it's tempting to think you need to say something 'new'. The book seems determined to lift the lid on Louis' homosexuality or bisexuality. Whilst such things might have mattered whilst he was alive, we now live in an era when the vast majority of readers neither know nor care about the sexuality of others. I don't consider the author has proven anything. I also don't consider it was a necessary topic to address. Let him do what and who he wanted to. So long as the Russians weren't blackmailing him (and frankly, he and Edwina slept with so many and different people that they didn't have that much of a reputation to protect) did it really matter? Snippy little comments about Mountbatten liking younger women with long, slender thighs just made me wonder if this was really supposed to be a serious biography or an extract from the News of the World. There are also disturbing claims about the abuse of young boys from the Kincora children's home that made me think the author had better have cast iron proof or should expect to end up with a libel case against him.

With all the nasty focus on infidelity and sexuality, what really shone through from the letters between Dickie and Edwina was just how fond of each other they were.

I think this book is interesting for british people of certain age as Mountbatten was a prominent figure in the 20th century. I think it could have been more critical of his part in the division of India, though nobody knows how much bloodshed there would have been if India had remained as one country. I knew that Edwina was shamelessly unfaithful, but I hadn't realised how much of a family man he was and how much he was loved by the present royal family - after all part of his family.

I think the book may be of interest to some, but it didn't capture my interest. I think it was the writing style, very factual way to develop the story rather telling it like a novel albeit a factual novel. Not to my taste as I'd rather either facts without all the waffle, or else told like a story, but I think others would enjoy

The Mountbattens by Andrew Lownie is a riveting and meticulously researched book about Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife Edwina. Both were quite amazing people in their own ways and deeply flawed in others. Louis the master organiser , brilliant innovator and inventor but also the hapless buffoon whose narcissism and use of contacts over ability to rise up the ranks into jobs he was not capable of doing got people killed. Edwina the society girl who didn't let her marriage get in the way of several affairs,sometime several at once but also someone who worked tirelessly and selflessly for charities around the world. Louis Naval career was a disaster ,many incidents sounding as they'd come straight out of the old radio series, "The Navy Lark", while his monstrous ego saw himself as the new Nelson.

Lownie does a fantastic job of relating the Mountbatten's various affairs ,which were many , various and a real eye-opener into the morals and deviance rife amongst the upper classes of the time.
Knowing something of Mountbatten I thought he'd got off quite lightly until I read the "Rumours" chapter when Mountbatten's connection to Kincora and creatures like Tom Driberg, Lord Boothby and their associates is related.
I was quite surprised at the omission of any mention of his friendship with Jimmy Savile and not least his introduction of the disgraced DJ into the Royal Family,where Prince Charles once stated that Savile was "one of my best friends".

Lownie's telling of Louis Mountbatten's life appears quite sympathetic, he seems a well-meaning ,if eccentric character ,sometimes blamed for things that were not entirely his fault and constantly hurt by his wayward wife's bed-hopping adventures. Then come the final 2 chapters when we learn from those who knew him but were unable to speak out tell a different tale,one of a deviant egotist who used his Royal and Establishment links to grease his way to the top and cover up his perverted sexual appetites, a man living a lie in many ways, the avuncular figure who abused the vulnerable knowing he'd get away with it. The leader who took a real interest in lower ranks, an interest that many found was a "fishing expedition".

This is compulsive reading and a book that has deservedly been a massive success.

Thanks to Andrew Lownie, Bonnier Books and Netgalley for the review copy in return for an honest review.

The Mountbattens is an extremely well researched and interesting biography which is a really insightful look at one of the worlds most well known families.