Put the kettle on, pour a cuppa and get ready to settle in for the telling of an epic fractured fairy tale.
Whether you just want tea or something stronger is up to you, perhaps depending on where you weigh in on the "just how unfair has the world been to Meghan Markle" scale.
Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family, the long-awaited story of what really happened when Harry met Meghan, is finally out—and the new book by longtime royals reporters Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand leaves few stones unturned.
Said to be based on interviews conducted over two years with more than 100 people, including Buckingham Palace aides and close friends of the couple (though not the Sussexes themselves), and encompassing up-close observations and insider knowledge of what makes the royals tick, the book was written "to shed light on a side of the story that we haven't heard much of," Scobie explained on his podcast, The HeirPod.
He has emphasized that the book is "unofficial" and "unauthorized," and both the authors and a spokesperson for Harry and Meghan have denied that the couple participated in the project in any way.
"This book is based on the authors' own experiences as members of the royal press corps and their own independent reporting," the rep has said.
While one of the stated purposes of Finding Freedom is to clear up a lot of the misinformation that's been circulating about the couple basically since the press first got wind of Harry's new girlfriend, Scobie also says that he hopes the book also serviced to humanize Meghan, because there have been so many stories in which "she has really been treated anything but."
Even some of the headlines and commentary surrounding the advance excerpts from the book have been misleading, he added, so the veteran royals correspondent is hoping that people will read and judge the truth for themselves—and enjoy the "fun and beautiful moments" amid all the drama.
Several tempting morsels from the purported tell-all were indeed handed out over the past few weeks, from the revelation that palace aides were none too happy about Meghan sporting a necklace with "H" and "M" charms early on in their courtship, and not because she's a fan of a certain fast-fashion chain, to the assertion that Harry was "pissed off" when Prince William implored him not to rush into getting serious with Meghan.
But of course everyone was waiting for the full-on feast and, yes, we've been gorging.
Here is the best dish that Finding Freedom has to offer:
But at the heart of Finding Freedom, Scobie says, is "a beautiful love story, and a story of two people that really went against all odds to create a life that worked for them and allowed them to thrive in a space that they weren't thriving in before."
As Meghan herself said, in the ITV interview from October that in hindsight was a definite precursor to her and Harry's groundbreaking decision to step down as working royals: "It's not enough to just survive something, right? Like, that's not the point of life. You've got to thrive, you've got to feel happy."
—With reporting by Beth Sobol