Book Review: Queen of Hearts, Her Royal Spyness
Exclusive interview with Rhys Bowen and a review of the eighth book in Her Royal Spyness series where Georgie travels to Hollywood
Rating: 4 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“Everything has to be right,” says Queen of Hearts author Rhys Bowen. “So this book takes Georgie across the Atlantic on a luxury liner, and in the interest of art and accuracy I had to cross the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2. You see how we writers have to suffer…. It actually gave me wonderful insights.”
Amateur sleuth Georgie and her mother Claire Daniels, the glamorous and much-married actress, are aboard the RMS Berengeria en route to America. Movie mogul Cy Goldman wants Claire to star in his latest film, a talkie to film in Hollywood. Onboard the ship, jewelry is being stolen. Georgie’s beau Darcy O’Mara is undercover on board the ship trying to track down the thief.
Bowen brings aristocratic glamour to Hollywood. The details about the transatlantic trip aboard the Berengeria and little aspects of vintage Hollywood and Beverly Hills are a fun twist in the Royal Spyness series. The series started in 2007 and now comprises eight books. This book is great fun and an easy read and the interaction between Georgie and her mother leaves you hungry for more.
Georgie’s full title is Lady Georgiana Rannoch, thirty-fifth in line for the British throne. She’s been invited on an all-expenses-paid trip by her mother because she wants to divorce her husband Homer Clegg and decides on Reno as the best place to do it quickly. Once in Hollywood Cy invites everyone to his house…which is more of a castle. On arrival they find out Cy’s wife will be there too. It’s all pretty civilized, until Cy gets murdered. Who did it? Can Georgie solve the mystery?
The first book in the mysetery series, Her Royal Spyness, is being made into a motion picture in England. Bowen says the character of Georgie hasn’t changed that much in the course of eight books. “A little more worldly-wise perhaps, and a little more savvy at investigating crimes, but still penniless, still striving to make her own way in a difficult world, and still a virgin, I regret to say.”
To research her latest book, besides taking a cruise, Bowen looked at lots of old newsreel clips of Beverly Hills from the Thirties. There was almost nothing there at that time apart from the hotel. She says she found lots of photographs taken on the Berengaria. “I knew what every space there looked like,” says Bowen.
Books in Royal Spyness series have won an Agatha, a MacAvity, an RT Reviewer’s Choice, an award for best mystery series, and had many nominations. “One of the books also just won an Audie for best female narration for the audio version,” says Bowen, “with Katherine Kellgren, my narrator, beating out Meryl Streep.”
Jackie Cantor is Bowen’s editor at Penguin. “She’s been with me since book one and I adore her,” says Bowen. “She is so easy to work with and my biggest cheerleader.”
Meg Ruley at Janerosen in New York is Bowen’s agent. “She is simply the best, and nicest and I adore her too,” says Bowen.
Bowen is currently writing the next Lady Georgie book called Malice at the Palace set at a royal wedding. Bowen will be at the Capital Book Festival in Sacramento in October and the Tucson book festival in March.
Bowen lives in Marin County, California during the summer and in Arizona in the winter. She was born in Bath, Somerset.
www.rhysbowen.com • www.facebook.com/rhysbowenauthor • @rhysbowen on Twitter • Blog at www.jungleredwriters.com
Queen of Hearts by Rhys Bowen Series: A Royal Spyness Mystery (Book 8)
Hardcover, 304 pages, Publisher: Berkley Hardcover (August 5, 2014), Language: English, ISBN-13: 978-0425260364 $25.9
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