Victoria & Abdul: the true story of the Queen’s closest confidant. Shrabani Basu. 2017.

In the twilight years of her reign, after the devastating deaths of her two great loves - Prince Albert and John Brown - Queen Victoria meets tall and handsome Abdul Karin, a humble servant from Agra waiting tables at her Golden Jubilee. The two form an unlikely bond and within a year Abdul becomes a powerful figure at court, thenQueen’s teacher, her counsel on Urdu and Indian affairs, and a friend close to her heart. This marked the beginning of the most scandalous decade in Queen Victoria’s long reign. As the royal household roiled with resentment, Victoria and A duo’s devotion grew in defiance.

Drawn from secrets closely guarded for more than a century, Victoria & Abdul is an extraordinary and intimate history of the last years of the nineteenth-century English court and an unforgettable view onto the passions of an aging Queen.