Her Royal Spyness should have had it all: Cute premise, 1930s setting in upper (way upper) class England, murder mystery, likable heroine. For some reason I could not get into it. I stuck it out and managed to finish but the book dragged for me until about page 100, then it slowly picked up and managed to lumber home.
The reviews on Amazon were enthusiastic and Amy Peveto highly recommended this on her Bookzilla blog. So why didn’t it work for me??
The main character Lady Georgiana, aka Georgie, a minor member of the British royal family, wants to set her own life, away from her penny pinching sister in law, away from her family’s drafty, cold castle and most definitely, away from the cold suitor hand picked by her cousin’s wife, Her Majesty.
Sad fact is girls in her class – especially royal family members however minor – did not do that in the 1930s. It simply Was Not Done. Despite the problems, Georgie is completely broke and needs cash now. She manages to start a business opening homes and doing light cleaning while living in her family’s equally cold and drafty London mansion. That’s a cute premise and the book should have, could have been loads of fun. The romance part of the book worked better than the mystery, with Georgie overcoming somewhat predictable problems.
Maybe part of the problem was Rhys Bowen took so long to establish the setting, characters and backstory. Her Royal Spyness is the first in a series that has at least four newer novels.
All in all, I’ll give this 3 Books. Cute, nice but just missed the mark.
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