Her Royal Spyness was a letdown for me. It starts out promisingly enough but then it quickly loses steam. It's more chick lit and less the historical mystery that I signed up for. In the end, it just wasn't my cup of tea.Rhys Bowen's opener in the Her Royal Spyness mysteries is narrated by Lady Georgie, thirty-fourth in line for the British throne. It's 1932 and Georgie lives in a drafty Scottish castle with her brother the Duke's family. Now that she's twenty-one, she has been cut off from her allowance and is expected to marry a ghastly prince she can't stand. So she flees her ancestral home for London where she acquires some very un-royal jobs on the down-low in order to support herself and live a life of freedom. She begins a flirtation with an unsuitable Irish Catholic peer but despite his poverty and rakishness, she can't deny her attraction to him. Hampering her fresh start is the queen asking Georgie to spy on the Prince of Wales and Wallis Simpson for her. And to make matters worse, a dead body turns up in Georgie's bathtub. And not any dead body but the body of a dreadful man who was after her family's estate. To clear her family name, Georgie must investigate and find the real killer.Her Royal Spyness started off funny and sparkling. It was soon apparent that this was more Princess Diaries than Poirot, but at first I didn't mind because I was taken with Georgie's humorous voice. Unfortunately, the humor wears thin and the sparkle fades all too soon. Sometimes the book tries too hard to be funny. The plot is slower than molasses. It's called Her Royal Spyness (emphasis on spy), and the synopsis promises spying for the queen and a murder mystery. Yet the mystery doesn't get underway for far too long and the spying doesn't take place until almost the end of the book. The writing gets repetitive and there's a lack of focus in the story.The character of Georgie seems like a Mary Sue to me. We're repeatedly told that she's clever! She's "endearingly" clumsy just so she has a "charming" flaw that makes her "relatable!" She can work as a housekeeper even though she's never cleaned a day in her life! I found parts of this novel to be juvenile, especially when Georgie's having girl talk with her friends, where the dialogue gets really vapid. I found Georgie's best friend to be shallow beyond belief. The sex talk (of which there was too much) was cringe inducing and didn't ring true to 1932, imo. If I had to hear sex described as "heavenly" one more time I might've screamed. Some of the dialogue trying to sound authentic to the 1930s just came off as annoying. The aristocracy were all portrayed as spoiled babies. Granted, no one comes off too well, with most characters coming across as obnoxious and irritating. I did like the queen and Georgie's grandfather, but that was about it. Georgie herself could be an awful snob.Then there's the mystery. Georgie delegates too many investigative tasks to friends and relatives as she's "too famous" and "might be recognized." Hearing updates from others about what they uncovered does not make for exciting reading. I wanted Georgie to be out there sleuthing more herself! She isn't an active enough amateur detective. I found the mystery to be too predictable. The clues felt glaringly obvious and I guessed the killer early on.If you're looking for a mystery, I would say skip this one. And though I'm not the biggest fan of chick lit, I don't think it succeeds in that department either. I also didn't buy the romance. I found that this was a slog to get through. Her Lady Spyness doesn't feel believable or authentic.

I could not put this book down! Her Royal Spyness is the first book in Rhys Bowen's Royal Spyness series and I definitely plan to continue reading the series.Even though I'm a big fan of Bowen's other two mystery series, Evan Evans and Molly Murphy, I hesitated to read this one since I'm not a big fan of books featuring aristocrats. Selah convinced me to give the first book a try when she set me straight about Georgie's heritage. Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie's royal heritage is from her father and her mother is an actress whose father is a retired Cockney policeman.

***2018 Summer of Spies***What an absolutely charming beginning to a series! Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie is a poverty-stricken gentlewoman, 34th in the line of succession to the throne, trying to keep up appearances with little to no income. This author makes the most of the fascination with the Royal family and the deportment of Queen Victoria and her successors. For example:The sight of one female person slinking across the forecourt on foot would definitely have my esteemed relative-by-marriage, Her Royal Majesty and Empress of India, Queen Mary, raise an eyebrow. Well, probably not actually raise the eyebrow because personages of royal blood are trained not to react, even to the greatest of improprieties. Were a native in some dark corner of the colonies to strip off his loincloth and dance, waggling his you-know-what with gay abandon, not so much as an eyebrow twitch would be permitted. The only appropriate reaction would be polite clapping when the dance was over.A great deal of fun is had with the whole we are not amused stereotype, the contrast between Britons and Americans, and the differences between the classes. Dont be looking for hard-hitting class commentary here, however. Most of the fun derives from the fact that Georgie and her brother are so clueless with regard to the actual running of a household and are so dependent on their servants that they can barely start a fire or boil water for tea.There is a romantic aspect to the tale as wellGeorgie is expected to either find suitable employment for a woman of her rank or find a husband with enough money to keep them in the style that they are accustomed to, money being more important than love in the equation. Georgie, however, has her own ideas on the suitability of husbands and she may have to dodge some of Queen Marys ideas on the subject. Light & fluffy, perfect for summertime reading!