THE pictures of the beautiful and toned woman frollicking in the sea off the south of France and, later, embracing her new man seemed to say life was starting again for Diana, Princess of Wales. In the sun of St Tropez, she had found love with Dodi Fayed, the son of Harrods boss Mohamed; her sons holidaying with her were also enjoying themselves. The scene was set for a future far happier than her past.

But the apparently blossoming love between Diana and Dodi came to an abrupt and tragic end in the early hours of August 30, 1997. Following the car crash in Paris, Dodi's father went out of his way to tell the world about how his son and the Princess were in love and that marriage had been imminent.

Staff at his property outside Paris (the former home of Edward VIII and the Duchess of Windsor) fanned the flames by suggesting it was where the new couple would live once married, a claim rubbished by Ben Murrell, a Fayed family security officer.

But according to the latest book about Diana, the six-week relationship was already rocky and the Princess would have soon lost interest in the Egyptian.

Diana already had a special man in her life - heart surgeon Hasnat Khan. Although their relationship had begun to cool by the time she met Dodi, friends have told author Judy Wade that they would soon have been reconciled.

Diana had met the tall, dark 35-year-old doctor while visiting a friend in London's Royal Brompton Hospital. If it wasn't love at first sight, she certainly noticed him immediately he walked in the room, making a mental note of his name that she spotted written on his shoes. The doctor, however, didn't even notice his patient's famous visitor - another reason perhaps why she was captivated by him.

As their relationship developed, it became clear that the surgeon's priority was work; he wasn't impressed by material things, only helping people. Again, this was something that appealed to Diana; she could envisage a future where they could work as a team helping the world's sick.

She was like a teenager in love, roller-blading in the park and researching everything Asian. On a visit to Pakistan, she became fascinated with Muslim culture; in London she would make late night visits to the hospital, not to visit the sick as she claimed, but to see her lover.

In October 1996, she agreed to visit Australia for a charity function; Wade claims the real reason was so she could meet Hasnat's best friends Paul and Erin Mander. In interviews with Erin, and Marie Sutton, who organised the Australia trip, Wade paints a picture of a couple deeply in love.

However, the relationship started to cool when Diana made a second, secret trip to Lahore, Hasnat's home city, to meet his family in a bid to persuade them into accepting her as a non- Muslim wife. Hasnat was horrified, believing Diana had risked exposing their secret. Their relationship had been going on for two years without anyone suspecting; they were rarely seen together and pictures of the doctor are extremely scarce.

Wade suggests that their determination to keep their relationship private was a sign of the value Diana placed on it; in contrast the author asks: "If Dodi had really been important, would Diana have flung her arms around him while sunning herself in the Mediterranean?" The book, Diana: The Truth, contains other revelations about the men in the Princess's life. Paul Burrell was a devoted and loyal servant, advising her on everything from her wardrobe to her men friends. But although he was her "rock" as well as her butler, he was about to be sacked.

Shortly before her death, the Princess said he would have to go. In spite of running her home efficiently for nine years and uprooting his wife and two young boys from Highgrove, the home she shared with Prince Charles, to move to London when the couple separated, it was not enough for the Princess.

"When he Burrell was guilty of the occasional lapse or she was in a low mood, she would conveniently forget his years of devoted care," writes author Wade, a former royal correspondent on The Sun and now royal editor of OK! magazine.

The Paul Burrell story was disclosed by hairdresser Natalie Symons, a daily visitor to the Princess's apartments at Kensington Palace, during the last months of her life. During her contact with the Princess the 27-year-old witnessed a change in her famous client as she built a new life for herself, throwing off the demands and expectations of being a royal and revealing herself more as a 'normal' person. Natalie recalls how male friends of the Princess were graded - one week singer Bryan Adams was number one, the next he was demoted to number eight. Among the people Diana liked were Tony Blair, Luciano Pavarotti, Tom Cruise and Bill Clinton; those she disliked included John Major, Placido Domingo, Cruise's wife Nicole Kidman and Clinton's wife Hillary.

The Princess's bedroom at Kensington Palace had yellow walls, a carved wooden four-poster bed with a floral coverlet and a huge 40 inch screen TV, on which she watched her favourite soap, Brookside. Her dressing room was equally sparse with only a white dressing table with photos of her boys behind the glass.

Her public image as a clothes horse upset the Princess who was desperate to be known for what she did rather than what she wore. At home she would take off her designer work 'uniform' and kick off her Jimmy Choo heels and slip into high street clothes from M&S and Laura Ashley.

But in spite of her protestations that she wasn't interested in clothes, when she died, her dressing room contained 40 different black cocktail dresses.

More than anything, this book reveals her as a woman of contradictions, even if it is thin on sources and real evidence.

Diana: The Truth by Judy Wade (Colbert Macalister, £15.99