Four Funerals and Maybe A Wedding (Her Royal Spyness #12)
By: Rhys Bowen
Published Year: 2018
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 304
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This in no way shape or form influenced my opinion.
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Georgie is finally able to plan for her wedding in the summer. It is going to be a summer of weddings: her mother is marrying Max, her German beau; Georgie's grandfather is marrying his next door neighbor, Mrs. Huggins; and Darcy's father is getting up the courage to ask the princess to marry him. Georgie is staying at the princess's London house when she receives a letter from one of her mother's former husbands, Sir Hubert Anstruther. Georgie is now his sole heir, and he's offering her the use of his lovely country house. He suggests she move in right away to keep an eye on the place because all might not be well since his butler died.
Georgie talks this through with her husband-to-be, Darcy, who is off to Europe again, this time to Berlin. They decide that she will take Sir Hubert up on his offer. However, when Georgie arrives, it becomes clear that she is definitely not wanted in the house. Strange things are happening, including a lively ghost and a less than friendly reception from the new butler. When a body shows up, Georgie realizes that Sir Hubert's invitation may not have been entirely altruistic and begins to wonder if she'll even make it to her wedding day.
First Impressions
I have seen the cover for previous books in this series and always thought it looked cute. I like the cartoon-y look of it. It’s appealing and looks like a fun, light read. I was a little worried about starting with the 12th book of a series, but hoped that it was the type of series that you didn’t need much background with.
What I thought
This book was a lot of fun to read! Even though it took me a week to read, it felt like I flew through it.
Georgina is a daughter of a Duke and is connected to British royalty. In this novel, she is about a month away from marrying her fiancé Darcy. Her mother is also about to marry her German boyfriend Max, and her Grandfather is about to marry a woman as well. Before getting married, Darcy and Georgina need to find a place to live. Since Georgina is renouncing her title and tie to royalty and (I assume) because she is a woman, she doesn’t have much money. Darcy completes some secret work and also doesn’t make much money, meaning they are struggling to find a suitable place to live that isn’t Darcy’s family’s old castle. Georgina receives a letter from her stepfather that he would like to give his home to Darcy and Georgina as a wedding present (he will still live there in a wing). He also mentions that he has felt something has been off at his home while he has been away (he has been traveling the world for years) and would like her to look into it. When she arrives, she definitely sense something is amiss and works to figure out what.
I know that’s a bit of a long summary, but there is a lot going on. I didn’t even get into the whole family/royalty portion of the book. I will just say that there was a lot of aristocracy in this novel and British monarchy tie-in and I greatly enjoyed it. I feel like when books have British royalty they don’t often name the actual monarchs (with the exception of historical fiction), but I liked that they did.
Coming into this series in the middle was a lot easier than I thought. I’m sure there are some storylines that would make more sense to me (more nuanced maybe?) if I had read the other novels, but it works pretty well as a standalone. Georgina wasn’t trying to solve a previous mystery, and everything was wrapped up in the end.
I also appreciated that Georgina was smart, but not unbelievable smart. She was a strong woman for the time that she lives in as well. There wasn’t much of Darcy, so I can’t say much about him, but I did love her mother. She was a character and she cracked me up.
The mystery aspect of the novel isn’t anything ground breaking. I will say it was nice to read a mystery that was on the lighter side of things and not a thriller. I’ve read a lot of heavy intense mysteries/thrillers, and this book goes back to the style of old mystery novels. It moved at a great pace and I was interested the entire time.