Book of the Week: HER ROYAL SPYNESS by Rhys Bowen

Rhys Bowen, a noted mystery writer, has branched out in a wonderful direction with this new series. Rhys has always been a writer of charm and talent with a gift for portraying historical eras. SPYNESS displays both these talents.

Between-the-wars England has been the setting for many golden age mysteries, and it’s a happy place to revisit. Rhys’s protagonist is 34th-in-line-for-the-throne Lady Georgina, an impoverished member of the aristocracy who’s trying desperately to earn her own way and create her own life, only to be thwarted at every turn by her peers.

When she comes down to London from her family’s chilly castle in Scotland, Georgie finally gets a job at Harrods, only to be sabotaged by her own mother. Meeting with various friends from her past, Georgie finds it’s impossible to dress and party like her old school chums, though some of them are helpful. Then the queen summons her to give her an unpaid job; the queen wants Georgie to spy on the woman in her son’s life, an American woman called Wallis Warfield Simpson.

Unfortunately, this task has to take back seat to dead man Georgie finds in her bathtub. And what’s worse, she recognizes the dead man; he’s the one that won her brother’s estate in a card game.

With some interesting twists and turns, our aristocratic friend solves the case and begins an interesting relationship with an Irish peer who’s just as poor as she is.

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This past week I finished my next Sookie Stackhouse book. The sprint to the end almost did me in, so there was no Book & Blog last week. I had the help of my daughter, who keyed in the changes after my rewrites, which were extensive. I also had the invaluable aid of Toni L.P. Kelner and Dana Cameron, writing friends who offered great advice on some rough parts of the manuscript. I’ll be sending the file to my agent and my editor today. This is the best feeling in the world, comparable to the day after a dreaded operation, when you realize you feel much better than you expected.

My last big push to finish the book was complicated by the fact that my computer got hit by lightning, which is kind of ironic when you think about Harper Connelly. I’ve lost my address book. So if you expected to get an email from me and didn’t, send me your email address. I’m working on my laptop now, and I miss my computer enough to want to send it a get-well card. The repair guy says it’s a goner, though, and we’ll have to get a new one.

Next week there may not be a B&B either unless I send one in early. We’ll be softballing all next week. After that, things will calm down in our household. At least, that’s the plan.

As many of you know, our younger son was home on leave a week ago. We hadn’t seen him in a year, and our initial reaction was: He’s so BIG. (Our second one was: OMG, he got a tattoo.) Though the Army’s definitely put its mark on Middle Child, he proved he was still himself in a thousand different ways. Now he’s returned to Alaska, which (oddly enough) was warmer than Arkansas the day he flew back. The word for Arkansas, which by this time of the summer is usually broiling and dry – SOGGY.

I hope all of you are having a good summer. I can’t believe that it’s half over already, since I measure summer in terms of school and our school will start in five weeks, if I’m counting correctly. Slow summers seem to be a thing of the past. Now our summer schedule is more demanding than our fall schedule!

I’ll conclude this rambling blog by addressing an issue that may have occurred to you. You’ll notice I didn’t call my next book DEADICATED, which was the working title. That’s because I strongly suspect that won’t be the title by the time it hits the shelves. My past few titles for the Sookie books have been shot down, and I’m fairly sure that this one will be, too. Eh.

Charlaine Harris