Lady Georgiana Rannoch is a busy woman. Her mother is getting married, her grandfather, is getting married, and Georgie herself is getting married to the dashing Darcy O’Mara. That is a lot of planning and coordinating. And technically, Georgie has no place to live. She is currently living at a friend’s house in London, but Georgie wants a place of her own. In the midst of her very busy schedule, she and Darcy go looking at flats in London, but unfortunately everything they can afford is not at all suitable. She may be royal, but she’s also broke.
And then, out of the blue, Georgie’s godfather writes to her from South America, where he is traveling. He has a house in Sussex, Eynsleigh, and he wants her and Darcy to move in after their wedding. He travels a lot and is barely there, so aside from a few rooms for himself, he wants to offer Georgie and Darcy the place as a home, as it will be Georgie’s one day anyway. He has provided for the upkeep and staffing of the house, so Georgie decides it’s the perfect answer to her prayers and wants to move in right away, to get everything the way she wants it for them to move in after their wedding.
But when Georgie arrives at Eynsleigh, she finds that things are not what they should be. All of the staff members she knew from her time there as a child are gone, and the new butler is less than ideal. His manner is gruff, and he is reluctant to help Georgie out. Once she proves to him that she has the right to live there and that she’s smart enough to catch him—and the other staff members—in complacency, he straightens up some. But she can’t help but think her godfather would be disappointed in the current state of the house, and she determines to get it back into shape.
Georgie starts to make some simple changes. Most of the furniture is covered in sheets, the rooms having been closed off for months. So she sets her sights on getting things back in order, starting by opening up several of the rooms, establishing a routine for a proper dinner, and getting the fountain out front working again. But the more she gets the new staff to make her changes, the more she finds that is amiss at the estate house. It just gets stranger and stranger.
And speaking of stranger, when a stranger showed up unexpectedly and then disappears, Georgie starts to wonder if this new staff isn’t just incompetent. Maybe they’re dangerous. And maybe she’s vulnerable.
Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding is the twelfth in the Her Royal Spyness Mystery Series by Rhys Bowen. It’s the first one I read, as I don’t usually go for historical novels. I was hoping I’d like it okay, but no. I liked it a lot. I thought Georgie was completely charming, and I wanted to learn more about her story. So now I’m going to have to go back and read more books in this series, because this one was so much fun. The writing was clever and effervescent, and the vague anachronisms and modern attitudes just added a sweet whimsy to the story that I enjoyed immensely.
I listened to this one on audio, and I thought narrator Jasmine Blackborow did a wonderful job with this book. Her accents were delightful, and I thought that the energy she brought to Georgie was pitch perfect.
Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding may not be for everyone. To enjoy this, you have to be smart and have a sense of humor and be willing to suspend your strict mindset about what you thought history looked and sounded like. But if you’re willing to take the trip, this book is a lot of fun.
Egalleys for Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding were provided by Berkley through Edelweiss, with many thanks, but I bought the audio book myself through Audible.
