{"id":63,"date":"2019-12-15T19:21:58","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T00:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samiamreadingandreviewing.wordpress.com\/?p=63"},"modified":"2025-06-24T21:05:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T21:05:19","slug":"malice-at-the-palace-rhys-bowen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/?p=63","title":{"rendered":"Malice at the Palace – Rhys Bowen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the tenth installment of the Royal Spyness series, Bowen delivers a novel that I concluded with mixed feelings. The mystery was average, at best, but I was totally sucked into Lady Georgianna Rannoch\u2019s personal life and feelings. As I\u2019ve now read ten of her novels, I\u2019ve concluded that Bowen does an extraordinary job with the mystery or an extraordinary job with the romantic plot, but not an extraordinary job at both. In her defense, however, it must be incredibly difficult to piece together all<\/strong> of the chaotic nuances of Georgie\u2019s life into a satisfying and believable storyline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for this novel, it\u2019s believable. All of them have been. Bowen is talented at reporting events through Georgie\u2019s eyes that readers know didn\u2019t really<\/em> happen, but wish they did because the picture she paints is so clear. This novel is no different: Georgie is once again lost at having to accompany a royal princess around London, accompanied by her less-than-pleasant companion. She flies by the seat of her pants, using her limited contacts to get invitations to parties, plays and the like. All too soon, however, she is embroiled in another mystery as a well-known socialite (and former lover of Prince George) winds up dead at the foot of Kensington Palace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To protect the royal family\u2019s reputation ahead of Prince George’s looming wedding, Georgie is asked by a high-ranking government official to keep her eyes and ears open. She works alongside Darcy, her unofficially-betrothed, to find the culprit without kicking up a scandal that the newspapers are likely to get wind of. In doing so, her romantic, domestic, and social life proves to get ever more complicated – never mind her task of finding a killer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bowen outdoes herself by adding new twists and tensions to Georgie\u2019s relationships in Malice at the Palace. I, for one, am reading the next novel just to satisfy my curiosity about the ending of this one (no, I am not giving you spoilers here!). However, the mystery is a little lacking. I found myself guessing who the culprit was about 25% of the way through. Her last novel was similar; the mystery was not awesome, but all of the period detail and personal relationship work was awesome. If you want to read what I consider her best plot, try The Twelve Clues of Christmas<\/em>. I was totally sucked into this book and consider it Bowen\u2019s best mystery so far. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though the mystery didn\u2019t do it for me this time, this series is still enjoyable. It has a lightheartedness about it that\u2019s hard to achieve in murder mystery writing, and you\u2019ll enjoy Georgie\u2019s antics, issues, and ability to handle whatever is thrown at her. If there is one criticism I have, it\u2019s that her bumbling maid, Queenie, has become more of an annoyance for me than entertainment. I feel it\u2019s time she was cut loose from the series.
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In the tenth installment of the Royal Spyness series, Bowen delivers a novel that I concluded with mixed feelings. The mystery was average, at best, but I was totally sucked into Lady Georgianna Rannoch\u2019s personal life and feelings. As I\u2019ve now read ten of her novels, I\u2019ve concluded that Bowen does an extraordinary job withContinue reading “Malice at the Palace – Rhys Bowen”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[52,61,120,165,179,236,253,283,287,301,324,333,346,357,358,359,369],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-book-review","tag-british","tag-england","tag-historical-mystery","tag-humor","tag-london","tag-malice-at-the-palace","tag-murder-mystery","tag-mystery","tag-novel","tag-princess","tag-reading","tag-rhys-bowen","tag-royal-family","tag-royal-spyness","tag-royalty","tag-scottish","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":686,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}