RogerBW's Blog

Royal Blood, Rhys Bowen 21 January 2023

2010 mystery/thriller, fourth in its series. Georgiana Rannoch, 34th in line to the throne, is sent to the wedding of Maria Theresa of Romania to Prince Nicholas of Bulgaria (after all she was at school with "Fatty Matty").

As usual, there are some historical slippages; King Michael of Romania appears to be rather more than the eleven years old he should be in 1932, not to mention that his father Carol II is actually on the throne then, and there's no mention of Boris of Bulgaria at all. I know, reality needs to be flexible to have royal personages at the right sort of age, but this all stresses reality rather harder than simply inventing an extra cousin for Victoria did, and the boundaries between the history we know and this slight alternate seem to wobble about rather and leave me on uncertain footing.

Anyway, the wedding is to take place in Bran Castle in Transylvania, so there's the whole vampire thing as well, which doesn't help when someone's seen scaling the sheer icy castle wall. Nor when a very pale young man surprises Georgiana in her bed. Nor when Maria Theresa is found with a bright red sticky mouth… And Georgie's dissolute mother is there, and her friend Belinda, and everyone's playing musical beds…

"Men only have two thoughts in their heads and those are killing or copulating."

"I'm sure there are plenty of men with finer feelings, who are interested in art and culture."

"Yes, darling, of course there are. They are called fairies. And they are quite adorable—so witty and fun to be with. But in my long and varied life I've found that the ones who are witty to be with are no use in bed, and vice versa."

But also the senior Bulgarian general drops dead in the middle of a drunken rant, and it looks very much like poison. Not that anyone's likely to miss him, though he was politically important, but now we know there's a poisoner in a snowbound castle. And there's a Romanian secret policeman, who's treated by characters and narrative alike as though he were the obvious villain, but actually raises some rather good points about abuse of royal privilege…

Most of this is quite fun, but it was rather spoiled by the comic relief, such as Georgianna's preternaturally stupid and incompetent maid, who appears set to be a recurring character. Georgie herself is too ready to indulge her vampire fantasies rather than think of possible mundane explanations for things. And while there are some reasonable doubts about her possibile relationship with obvious destined beau Darcy (he isn't the type to settle down to quiet domesticity even if they could afford to), the tracks that are bringing them together are increasingly obvious.

Not really sure why I keep reading these. No idea whether they're going anywhere interesting. May find out, eventually.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: Royal Flush | Series: Her Royal Spyness | Next in series: Naughty in Nice

  1. Posted by J Michael Cule at 11:45am on 21 January 2023

    You are reading them because they are right in your genre preferences (romance and mystery with added alt-history and gothic sprinkles) and it would require actual will power to stop treating them like literary popcorn.

    I am not mocking: I am a fellow sufferer.

  2. Posted by RogerBW at 12:01pm on 21 January 2023

    "Between the wars" has become one of my favourite gaming periods (fast global travel but not necessarily easy; limited long-range communications), which should also be considered a contributing factor.

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1