2016 historical adventure, last of its trilogy. Margaret Fitzroy's
father has reappeared, but some of her enemies are now in high places,
and everyone may have been lying to her.
In this book I found myself not particularly in sympathy with
Margaret, who dithers over whom to believe rather more than I like to
see in a protagonist. Yes, all right, that person told you a very
plausible story, but there are plenty of other possible explanations
for their piece of supporting evidence, and this is someone whom you
already know to be an accomplished liar who wishes you ill…
I like what Zettel's doing, with historical fiction that hews as
closely as possible to real history, while being firmly on the side of
gritty realism rather than letting glamour take over. But as written
the result can be something of a slog, as Margaret can achieve almost
nothing by herself, and has to rely on others who have their own
objectives which may not be compatible with hers.
Meanwhile there are Jacobite plots afoot, which is fair enough. But…
what of the genuine tension between the household of the Prince of
Wales (future George II) in London and his father (George I) in
Hanover? People like Walpole show up here, but there's no mention of
that particular conflict; any disagreement between King and Prince is
reduced to a personal level.
All of this, which is of a piece with the earlier volumes, could be
forgiven more readily if the conclusion were more satisfying, but I'm
afraid I ended up feeling it was rather flat. Yes, all right, those
particular bad people are dead, but (realistically!) some others are
not, and even after a sudden miraculous recovery of fortune Margaret's
position still depends entirely on the whim of someone who has already
shown herself ready to throw Margaret to the wolves…
But even so I find myself unable to recommend against the book, or the
series. The first volume gives you a pretty clear idea of what you'll
get, and the others are more of the same sort of thing.