Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #117475 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Customer Reviews

Lady Georgiana Sets Out on Her Own
Lady Georgiana has a problem. She's over the age where she should be married, but she's still single. And her brother has just cut off her allowance.

Now if you're thinking, "No problem, just get a job" then you need a few more details. See, Georgie is thirty-fourth in line for the throne of England and this is 1932 London. Even though she has no money, working is beneath her class. Beside, what can she really do?

Georgie doesn't let that stop her, however. She starts trying her hand at anything she can think of, as anonymously as possible of course. And she may have found the perfect way to make some money to support her self. That is, until she finds a very dead man in her own bathtub. How did he get there? And, more importantly, is Georgie's life in danger?

I've been a devoted fan of Rhys Bowen's work since I discovered it five years ago. So buying this book was a no brainer. And I must say I enjoyed it.

The mystery itself was a little slow, especially at the beginning. Once it got going, it held my interest until the end. And I was completely stumped, figuring it out only when Georgie did.

What kept me going was Georgie herself. She is lots of fun with a great sense of humor. Her narration had me grinning most of the way through the book. She's just the right mix of upper class and realist to be immediately likable.

This book is as much about Georgie's search to support herself as it is the mystery. If read as such, it will be very satisfying. Light and fun reading.

Very light, but fun
HER ROYAL SPYNESS (Cozy-Lady Victoria-England-1930s) - G
Bowen, Rhys - 1st in series
Berkeley Prime Crime, 2008, US Paperback - ISBN: 9780425222522

First Sentence: There are two disadvantages to being a minor royal.

Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie may be 34th in line for the throne, but she is also broke. She is staying at the family mansion, Rennoch House, in London and learning to be self-sufficient.

A disagreeable Frenchman shows up at the door looking for her brother. He claims their father, a gambler who had lost the family fortune, had also lost the family home, Castle Rennoch. Victoria later finds the Frenchman dead in the bathtub and her brother her brother headed back to the Castle. She doesn't believe her brother killed the Frenchman; how she just has to prove it.

This first book in Ms. Bowen's new series introduces us to a cast of delightful characters. While some seem to be social stereotypes, it's hard not to be drawn to Lady Victoria and her non-titled grandfather, an ex-policeman. In fact, almost the first half of the book introduces us to the characters. Only after that do we get into the mystery, which is decently done except for way too many coincidences.

The book is a bit too light for my taste, but it is a fun.

What do you call a Frenchman in the bath? A Foreign Body
And the body of a dead Frenchman is exactly what Lady Georgiana, the heroine of this book, finds in her bath at the start of this comic murder mystery.

This is the first in a series of, currently, three "Royal Spyness" mysteries by Rhys Bowen, who is also the author of the "Molly Malone" and "Constable Evans" mystery series. The heroine and central character is a delightful but penniless minor royal called Lady Georgiana (full name Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, but known to her friends as Georgie), great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and half-sister of the Duke of Atholt and Rannoch.

The book is set in 1932. On overhearing that Queen Mary has asked her brother to organise a house party in the hope of marrying her off to Prince Seigfried of Romania, who she can't stand, Georgie escapes to the family home in London, Rannoch House. This does not get her away from the Queen's plans for long: instead HM asks Georgie to spy on the Prince of Wales and report back on whether he is really serious about this american woman, Mrs Simpson, who the prince seems to be spending a lot of time with.

Before this gets very far, Georgie finds the aforementioned foreign body in the bath at Rannoch House. Worse, it soon becomes apparent that both Georgie and her brother would have had a strong motive to murder the dead man, and the Duke is arrested. While trying to keep an eye on the Prince of Wales, find evidence to clear her brother's name, and surreptitiously earn a few pennies to keep body and soul together, Georgie comes to suspect that someone is trying to murder her too. But why?

Fairly amusing, and I intend to read the other books in the series, which are A Royal Pain (Royal Spyness Mysteries) and Royal Flush (Royan Spyness Mysteries).