3.5 AVERAGE


I love this series. Rhys Bowen is quite a talent with entertaining historical fiction and the character of Georgie is endearing, along with her Irish husband, Darcy (her charming maid, Queenie, and best friend, Belinda, are not featured in this book, which is a shame but loved it nonetheless). Assuming this series continues, it will be very interesting to see how serious Ms Bowen takes things as the timeline inches closer and closer to WWII. Overall, very highly recommended.
adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

erinstjames's review

3.0

I was super excited about this book because Georgie and Darcy were FINALLY together and I thought Darcy finally wouldn’t be such a background character.

I also knew about the Happy Valley scandal and about Alice murdering Lord Errol so I thought that was the route she was going to go but instead she switched up the accuracy and turned it into another mystery- which is fine- but she introduced 2 other mysteries that were rushed and not properly solved until the last couple of pages.

Hopefully we see more of Georgie and Darcy being a team as opposed to him popping in and out a couple pages of the book and if you’re going to introduce several mysteries maybe think of solving them unless you’re leading them into the next installment.

Does an okay job balancing the issues of race, ethnicity, and class but is def a little awkward. A good mystery per usual.

Love the characters and scenery. Thought that the actual murder was resolved very quickly , but other things left ip in the air. I expect I will read more about those in the next novel...

I usually love these as light reading but for some reason this one just didn't grab me.

A middling entry in the series. Without Queenie, or any of the other fun side characters, this is kind of dull. Excessive Postscript ending is pretty weak.

This was another charming visit with Lady Georgiana and her dashing beau, who is now her husband.
I've been a longtime fan of the series thus far, and enjoy when the books has taken in place in other settings than the Georgie's main haunts of London and Scotland.

In this case the setting of pre-WWII Kenya is a tricky one to navigate. Bowen offers an author's note in the beginning to acknowledge that the way the natives are spoken to and spoken about by many characters is indicative of sentiments at the time, which is helpful to keep in mind.

Overall this felt like the thinnest of all the books in terms of plot and characters. There were large swaths of the book that were just various people uttering shock and dismay at the reveal of a dead person, which I suppose would just be telling instead of showing if Georgie summed it up instead, but I found myself skimming those parts a bit. I also guessed the killer when the crime scene was first introduced, which is rare for me in a Her Royal Spyness book, but there were other unexpected details. But many of the details were offered in a brief wrap-up that made me feel like this book needed to be finished rather hastily, which if you're publishing multiple books a year, could be the case.
Still a treat, but mostly because of all the charming books that came before.

I love this series, and even with this books weaknesses, I still enjoy Georgie and Darcy and their adventure in Kenya. I loved the unique setting and the lush historical detail. However, it took halfway through the book even to get to the murder and there were way too many characters, making me confused about who was who because so many characters fit in the same basic tropes. Saying that, I was happy with the ending and the unique setting really added interest.

theladycif's review

4.0
adventurous mysterious medium-paced