Book Review: God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen by Rhys Bowen (Royal Spyness Mysteries #15)

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Characters, history playing in and out of the mystery

Cons: pacing very off in the beginning

The Bottom Line:

Christmas house party

Royals target of killer?

History is strong

Royal Intrigue at Christmas

While all of the books in the Royal Spyness series involve the history of the 1930’s to some extent, some books seem to incorporate it more than others. God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen is one of those books. 

Christmas 1935 is fast approaching, and Lady Georgiana is trying to decide how she and Darcy should spend their first Christmas together as husband and wife. She’s thinking a small house party might be fun, but then they get an invitation from Darcy’s aunt. Georgie hasn’t met this aunt yet, but they feel like they need to accept, especially since it is implied that the queen is behind the invitation. 

When Georgie, Darcy, and their guests arrive, Georgie learns she was indeed summoned by the queen. The queen suspects that something evil is going to happen over Christmas, and she hopes Georgie can figure out what it is and stop it. Stories about unfortunate deaths during a Boxing Day hunt the year before only heighten Georgie’s unease. Can she figure out what is going on before it is too late?

Once again, the book takes a bit of time to get going. We need some time to set up the story, and we also need some updates on the friends and family in Georgie’s life who won’t be part of the major action. Fans of the series will enjoy those updates and have come to expect the pacing of the beginning. 

Christmas also slows down the pacing a little here. Christmas fan that I am, I’m a little torn on this one. I did enjoy hearing about the Christmas traditions they were observing and those scenes made me smile. 

Once we do get to the mystery, it is very clever. I hadn’t figured out who or how until Georgie pieces things together. I always enjoy it when she and Darcy are working together, and we get plenty of that here. 

The characters are wonderful as always. I won’t spoil who from Georgie’s life plays a bigger part in this book, but their presence proved to be a lot of fun. The new characters we meet make for wonderful suspects and definitely kept me guessing until the end. 

Which brings us back to the history I talked about earlier. The end of 1935 was a major time in English history and impact some of the real-life events we’ve been following in this series since the very first book. The royal family plays a major part of what is happening here. It is easy to separate out fact from fiction, of course, but contemplating how the real-world events might play into the fictional motives for murder is quite fun.  The historical note at the end helps put the book into the proper historical contest.

Fans of the series will enjoy spending this Christmas with Georgie. God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen provides us with a puzzling mystery and plenty of history to keep us entertained. 

You'll want to be sure to check out the rest of the Royal Spyness Mysteries.

Note: I received an ARC of this book.