2018 historical adventure, first in a trilogy. Having had a fatal row
with her guardian, Margaret Fitzroy finds herself with no option but
to be sent as a spy into the court of King George, as one of the
maids-of-honour to the Princess of
Wales.
I've read stories which start along these lines, and the
heroine's spying associates turn out to be a found family and everyone
is happy. This is not one of those: Margaret can't trust any of her
controls, whether they speak kindly to her or not. She's taking the
place of a lady to whom she bears some resemblance, hoping that the
excuse of a recent illness will be enough to cover lapses in
memory—and it really won't be. Everyone has their own plans, whether
for a Jacobite restoration or merely for personal enrichment, and they
won't care in the slightest if one girl gets ground under their
wheels.
Things go slowly at first, but once Margaret realises how desperately
she needs to work out what the real Lady Francesca was up to matters
pick up a bit. Lady Francesca's lover is also rather unexpected. And
of course the palace is an environment of constant scrambles to be on
top, if only for the lack of anything else to do. Margaret has a
decent set of skills but no experience in untangling puzzles, and
makes several mistakes before things are brought to a reasonably happy
conclusion (though only in the sense of a volume 1).
Adventures, as it happens, are universally uncomfortable things, and
as near as I can determine, are frowned upon by Nature and Nature's
God. We had not been on the river yet half an hour before it began
once more to rain: a steady downpour of determined drops such as
would worm their way under all layers of cloth to leave me soaked to
the skin and cold to my bones.
I've always liked Zettel's writing even when I haven't warmed to the
books as a whole, and though there are some Americanisms here there's
nothing egregious. I did spot one flaw in research, though:
Even in good weather, Matthew assured me, it was more than eight
hours' hard ride from Hampton Court to Kensington.
It's about 18km, so even at a walking pace it shouldn't be more than
four hours. (Our heroes take an oared boat to overtake someone
travelling on horseback, which seems unlikely to work well in any
circumstance.)
Oh well. But that could be fixed without derailing the plot, which
ties neatly back into the real-world history that's a constant
background presence. Not for me a masterpiece, but highly enjoyable
and I'll read more.