A NEW CHAPTER - 'IT'S IMPORTANT NOT TO FORGET YOUR DREAMS - I'M FINALLY REALISING MINE'

AUTHOR SARAH, DUCHESS OF YORK ON LOSS, TRAUMA AND FINDING HER PASSIONS IN LIFE

-  NICOLA FAHEY

From navigating a high-profile divorce from Prince Andrew to overcoming tabloid scandals and decades of media speculation about her personal life, Sarah, Duchess of York, is a survivor. But unbreakable as she may seem, it is only now, after successfully reinventing herself as a best-selling author, that the 63-year-old feels her life is beginning.

“I feel very proud to have embarked on a new career in my sixties,” she tells OK!. “Not many people get that opportunity. Now having married into the royal family isn’t my only claim to fame, I’m an author who has made the Sunday Times Bestsellers List. It feels like this is my time. It is very liberating.”

It’s mid-morning when we catch up with the author and charity campaigner before she boards a flight to LA to promote her new historical novel, A Most Intriguing Lady.

Known as one of the most down-to-earth members of the royal family, and by her own admission, deeply romantic, it’s perhaps unsurprising that she enjoys spending time across the pond. “I suppose that’s why I like being in the US so much, because people there tend to wear their heart on their sleeve more,” she says.

Before Prince Harry and his wife Meghan distanced themselves from royal life, it was Sarah who blazed the trail. She moved to the States following her 1996 divorce and became the first royal to be interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, when she declared life in the family was “not a fairy tale”.

Although their marriage ended 27 years ago, Sarah and Prince Andrew, who are parents to Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, have pulled off the rare feat of undergoing an amicable divorce and still live together at Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park when they are in the UK.