Her Royal Spyness
Ratings50
Average rating3.7
DNF - PG 35
Why?
Because I find Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie as insufferable as her name. (Yes, well done, you. You boiled water all on your own.)
Because I could have been warned that this is (ostensibly) satire (it says so on the front cover) and I neither enjoy satire or understand it.
Because I didn't realize this was supposed to be ‘funny'. (I don't remember Bowen's other books as being ‘funny' but that was many years ago.)
Because this is, put quite simply, just not the book for me.
This would be a great beach book. Fun characters an delightful story-telling. I listened to the audiobook which I would HIGHLY recommend as narrator Katherine Kellgren did a fantastic job.
Queen Victoria's great-granddaughter's adventures in 1930s England.
They say her grandmother was Victoria's least favorite daughter (, who married a Scottish nobleman, and their son married first a noblewoman, who died after giving birth to the heir, and Georgiana's brother, and then he married an actress, Georgiana's mother. I like the mother character :-D Even though she isn't especially motherly.
Georgiana is a lady and a second cousin of the crown prince (who would become Edward VIII and abdicate to marry Wallis Simpson).
This is a murder mystery. I have to say I guessed the murderer and the motive pretty quickly, but there were still some twists and secrets that I didn't guess.
She's spying for the queen. (Not Victoria, queen Mary, George V's wife)
This book is cute, fun, and quick to read. While the story isn't gripping in its intensity, the flow of the story and the humor help keep the reader engaged. While it does take a while for the mystery to truly begin, the build up was believable and not at all annoying. The humor produced a few small chuckles from me, but not enough for me to recommend this to someone wanting a funny book.
The characters were all quite defined and easily recognizable. There were a few times I confused some characters, but I blame that on my own memory and the spacing between their appearances. I think Georgie is a lovable character and hard-working. She may not be the easiest character to relate to, but I feel her predicament and her solution will gain her dedicated readers.
The setting was exquisite. It really felt the research was done for this book and it allows the readers to fall easily into the setting and perhaps learn more about the time period. The choice of time period allowed the characters some flexibility with how they act and gave them more freedom to move, which was fun to read about.
I will definitely be continuing this series at a later date.
Really fun, clean mystery. Falls firmly in the “cozy” category. I didn't lose interest as I read and I liked the main character well enough to buy more of the series.
Nit picks: occasionally there was a term or two that sounded too modern for the time frame. Every now and then there were grammatical lapses that jumped out at me. Otherwise, good. I get a real sense of the surroundings and didn't have a problem knowing what all was going on...the plot was clear and easy to follow.
Short Review: a funny cozy mystery that makes me think of the Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries written by Dorothy Sayers. In part because of the clear homage (a body turns up in the bathtub as in the first of the Wimsey mysteries) but also because they are set at about the same time and both have ameture sluthes. But as much as I enjoyed the book, her detective skills were more about being at the right place at the right time than actually solving anything.
I did like it enough to immediately pick up the next book in the series. The audiobook was very well done.
My full review is at http://bookwi.se/her-royal-spyness/