Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by kblincoln
A Most Dangerous Deception by Sarah Zettel
4.0
3.5 stars, actually.
Peggy Fitzroy, a teen of uncertain parentage, lives with her cousin and uncle until one day she is betrothed to the most eligible bachelor in town.
Who then assaults her before the wedding, so she calls it off, naturally, and runs to a mysterious friend of her mother.
This friend decides to send her to court to be a maid of honor to the Princess (Hanoverian German wife of Prince George after recently deposed Stuarts)to replace another maid recently passed away who was passing aforementioned friend political information.
So Peggy becomes Francesca and enters life at the court, only becoming Francesca means Peggy is now embroiled in both political and romantic entanglements that will be her undoing.
So.....it was okay. Peggy was cool. The political intrigue and court details of interminably long hours of standing around being ornamental or playing game and after game of cards with Lords it would be dangerous to annoy were cool.
Some intense suspension of disbelief is necessary, though. Okay, so back then they wore tons of make up and powdered wigs, but as Peggy wasn't Francesca's twin, I'm not sure how they truly thought they would fool Francesca's lover or the other maids of honor who supposedly spent scads of time with the real maid of honor...so that was weird.
Also, the romance level bings from attempted sexual assault, to finding a footman and a lady together in the stables, to very chaste hand touching and quick kiss...so while the romantic in me wasn't quite satisfied, I'm not sure I'd give this to the younger YA crowd to read.
Might learn a bit of history regarding the Jacobite uprising and British royal families, and there's skulking around and hidden caches of letters, but otherwise a fairly straight forward story whose premise takes a bit of swallowing to get down.
Peggy Fitzroy, a teen of uncertain parentage, lives with her cousin and uncle until one day she is betrothed to the most eligible bachelor in town.
Who then assaults her before the wedding, so she calls it off, naturally, and runs to a mysterious friend of her mother.
This friend decides to send her to court to be a maid of honor to the Princess (Hanoverian German wife of Prince George after recently deposed Stuarts)to replace another maid recently passed away who was passing aforementioned friend political information.
So Peggy becomes Francesca and enters life at the court, only becoming Francesca means Peggy is now embroiled in both political and romantic entanglements that will be her undoing.
So.....it was okay. Peggy was cool. The political intrigue and court details of interminably long hours of standing around being ornamental or playing game and after game of cards with Lords it would be dangerous to annoy were cool.
Some intense suspension of disbelief is necessary, though. Okay, so back then they wore tons of make up and powdered wigs, but as Peggy wasn't Francesca's twin, I'm not sure how they truly thought they would fool Francesca's lover or the other maids of honor who supposedly spent scads of time with the real maid of honor...so that was weird.
Also, the romance level bings from attempted sexual assault, to finding a footman and a lady together in the stables, to very chaste hand touching and quick kiss...so while the romantic in me wasn't quite satisfied, I'm not sure I'd give this to the younger YA crowd to read.
Might learn a bit of history regarding the Jacobite uprising and British royal families, and there's skulking around and hidden caches of letters, but otherwise a fairly straight forward story whose premise takes a bit of swallowing to get down.