Title: Her Royal Spyness
Author: Rhys Bowen
Series: A Royal Spyness Mystery, book 1
Genre: Mystery
Published: 2007
Recommendation: A funny light read that is almost more adventure than mystery.
Rating: 7.5/10
Summary: Georgie is a great granddaughter of queen Victoria, 34th in line to the throne and completely penniless in 1930s. She escapes her dreary life in Castle Rannoch to go to London and desperately attempts to make some money and fend for herself there. Until a murder occurs in her house and now she has to figure out who the murderer is and clear her family name.
Reactions: I picked up this book completely randomly on my last visit to the bookstore. I think the bright purple cover attracted my attention and the summary on the back looked quite witty, so I bought it. And the novel completely met my expectations: it was fun, witty, character driven, and a quick read.
The main character, Georgie, feels very modern. She is all about doing it herself, getting places and figuring things out. In fact I feel she was too modern, her thoughts seemed more like those of a contemporary woman than a pampered royal 70 years back. I ignored this aspect and found the rest of the story believable (mostly).
It's not a heavy mystery in terms of plot. The final resolution is not obvious, but not completely unexpected and the plot lacked the twists of more "serious" mysteries. Instead Gerogie gets into trouble, digs herself out and then gets into trouble again. It's fun to follow her adventures and the book resolution is fairly satisfying.
I finished the book quickly and had a lot of trouble putting it down while I was reading. I will definitely consider picking up more Georgie novels.
I picked this up as a stocking stuffer for my wife last night. I am excited to find some new authors for her this year and look forward to hearing what she thinks about this one.
ReplyDeleteI hope she likes it! I am going to be really happy if it works out :)
ReplyDeleteI do too. I almost bought both of them but thought I better just start with the first. Her birthday is not too far out after Christmas so I can hold book 2 in reserve for that.
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