For someone who knows a little about the Kennedys but virtually nothing on their background and upbringing, this was helpful. For instance, Leaming bypasses much of the Kennedy info to focus entirely on Kick and the aristocratic cousinhood, whereas Byrne explores Kick’s Kennedy forebears in remarkable detail. While both women know their subject extremely well, their respective biographies are entirely different. The acclaimed author Paula Byrne’s biography of Kick Kennedy first caught my attention before I realised Barbara Leaming also had a biography, written on the same subject, coming out. Surprisingly, this won her a great deal of admiration and her greatest friends became Sarah Norton (daughter of the beautiful Jean Norton, Lord Beaverbrook’s mistress), Billy and Andrew Cavendish (sons of the Duke of Devonshire), and, of course, Debo Mitford. She could laugh at herself and openly joke with the gentry at a time when English girls, who adhered to formality, could not. She was an anomaly for her time: outspoken, forward-thinking, and silly. The older girls were presented at Court, and Kick began to move in the exclusive circles of the aristocracy.

And so their charisma hypnotised London high society in the late 1930s, when Joseph Kennedy was posted there as the American Ambassador to the United Kingdom. All of the Kennedy children had star quality, Lady Redesdale (Muv) had once remarked that JFK would one day become president of the United States. The second-born daughter of Irish-American parents, Joseph and Rose Kennedy, she is forever associated with her political family, most especially the American president John F. It is unusual for two biographies on the same subject to be released within a month of each other, but then again Kick Kennedy is an unusual subject.

Kick kennedy by barbara leaming