Book Review: Her Royal Spyness

Author: Rhys Bowen
Title: Her Royal Spyness
Publisher: Berkley
Publish Date: 2007
Buy: Amazon
Book Blurb: Her ridiculously long name is Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, daughter to the Duke of Atholt and Rannoch. And she is flat broke. As the thirty-fourth in line for the throne, she has been taught only a few things, among them, the perfect curtsey. But when her brother cuts off her allowance, she leaves Scotland, and her fiancŽ Fish-Face, for London, where she has:

a) worked behind a cosmetics counter-and gotten sacked after five hours
b) started to fall for a quite unsuitable minor royal
c) made some money housekeeping (incognita, of course), and
d) been summoned by the Queen to spy on her playboy son.

Then an arrogant Frenchman, who wants her family's 800-year-old estate for himself, winds up dead in her bathtub. Now her most important job is to clear her very long family name.

Review: This is book one of the Royal Spyness series. I highly recommend this series if you are a lover of cozy mysteries and historical fiction.

Lady Georgiana is our spy. She's a member of the royal family; 34th in line to the throne. The story takes place in the 30s, when Edward was the Prince of Wales and Wallis Simpson was still married to her second husband.

I absolutely love this book. I read Naughty in Nice for a book tour last autumn and I knew I had to go back and read the books from start to finish. It was great fun to meet Georgiana, Binky, Fig and Queen Mary. I really liked the attention to detail in this book.

The mystery, doesn't really revolve around Georgie spying, so much as finding the person that killed the man in the bathtub of her family's London home. What it does do, is set up the rest of the series, by letting us see her relationship with Queen Mary as well as all the characters that will be showing up in books to come.

The mystery in this one is a bit light, but it kept me guessing until the end. I also love Darcy, Georgie's kinda sorta love interest.

I highly recommend this series. They are quick, fun reads and they take you back in time to a period that isn't super popular, so that is rather unique. Very enjoyable!

Rating 4 flowers