Reading list: week 14

I read two more books from Rhys Bowens Her Royal Spyness series: A Royal Flush and Royal Blood. The former finds Lady Georgiana Rannoch sent home to Scotland after her newest business venture fizzles (only a well-bred girl in the 30s would think that offering herself as a "high class escort" to businessmen who find themselves alone in London was a good idea). This one has more interaction with the royal family as Georgie is often over at the royal Scottish estate Balmoral, but I didn't find it quite as engaging as others, I'm not sure why.

(Edited to note: I must have also finished book 2: A Royal Pain earlier in the week, since I didn't record it last week and I've been reading them in order. In this one, Georgie is asked to host a Bavarian princess and she struggles to find the money to do so. She also struggles to figure out why people seem to die when she and Princess Hanni are in the vicinity--the police think they are prime suspects, though of course, two well-brought up young ladies know nothing about killing.)

I did like Royal Blood, where Georgie is sent to represent the royal family at the wedding of a former boarding school pal in Transylvania--partly because it was set in Transylvania (in, of course, the former family home of Vlad the Impaler) and partly because Georgie is soon convinced that vampires might be a real possibility. Even though I figured out the mystery here fairly early on, I still enjoyed the story--and I do like Georgie! I think, though, that it's a good thing that I'm now caught up on the series because I need to read something else.

Finally, I read Keturah and Lord Death, by Martine Leavitt. I'd picked this up a year or two ago but somehow couldn't get into it--reading it again now, I have no idea what my problem was. This time around, I devoured the book. It was beautifully written (there were some gorgeous lines), but more than that, the storyline between Keturah and Lord Death was powerful and engrossing. In the opening lines of the story, Keturah tells us that she met Lord Death in the forest and makes a bargain for her life--in a Scheherezade move, she tells him a story but will only tell him the ending if he lets her live another day. More than anything, Keturah wants to find her one true love, and she hopes this extra day will let her do so. But what she finds--about herself, her home, her friends, and her one true love, is moving and surprising. I really loved this book.