On Her Majesty's Frightfully Secret Service

A Royal Spyness Mystery, Book 11

By: Rhys Bowen

Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren

Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

In the new Royal Spyness Mystery from the New York Times best-selling author of Crowned and Dangerous, Lady Georgiana Rannoch juggles secret missions from the queen, Darcy, and her mother. But it's all in a day's work when you're 35th in line to the British Crown.

When Darcy runs off on another secret assignment, I am left to figure out how to travel to Italy sans maid and chaperone to help my dear friend Belinda, as she awaits the birth of her baby alone. An opportunity presents itself in a most unexpected way - my cousin the queen is in need of a spy to attend a house party in the Italian lake country. The Prince of Wales and the dreadful Mrs. Simpson have been invited, and Her Majesty is anxious to thwart a possible secret wedding.

What luck! A chance to see Belinda and please the queen as I seek her permission to relinquish my claim to the throne so I can marry Darcy. Only that's as far as my good fortune takes me. I soon discover that Mummy is attending the villa party, and she has her own secret task for me. Then, Darcy shows up and tells me that the fate of a world on the brink of war could very well depend on what I overhear at dinner! I shouldn't be all that surprised when one of my fellow guests is murdered and my Italian holiday becomes a nightmare....

©2017 Janet Quin-Harkin (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

The best female narrator has gone!!!! :(

This book was as fun as the rest of them, but now that Kathrine Kellgren has passed away, I cannot seem to finish the last book in the series! I am just too sad to lose her voice.
If you have not yet listened to her do the Bloody Jack Jamie Fabre series just go buy them now....so great! Pure vocal theatre. She will be sorely missed from afar 😢

Love this series!

The last few in this series were a little weak but this one puts the series back on track. Love the characters and most of all the narration! Very talented!

Georgianna and Katherine succeed again

I absolutely adore this series! Katherine Kellgren is by far the best narrator on Audible and I've listened to at least 30 others. She brings so much life into each character, it's incredible.

This wasn't my favorite storyline, found it a little slow and the motive was weak. However, I love the slow progression of Darcy and Georgi and how they're becoming a crime solving team.

Better than the last few

The series premise is that Georgie, now 35th in line to the throne, is too poor to really survive on her own without working. But it too royal to take a real job. So she pieces together things here and there, often staying with friends or family.

The ‘Royal Spyness’ from the series name has mostly been an accidental detective. Georgie is somewhere and someone is murdered and she figures out who it is. And while there has been several books with explicit directions from the Queen, it has not been spy or detective work as much as problem solving.

On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service is one of the clearest attempts to actually carry through with the premise. The Queen sends out Georgie to check up on the Crown Prince Edward and Wallis Simpson. The Queen is afraid that they are going to quietly get married.

Because this is a historical fiction cozy mystery, there really is some history that these are loosely based on. Prince Edward was having an affair with Mrs Simpson. There was concern about his getting married to her (she was twice divorced and could not legally get married to him if he was going to be King.)

At the end of the last book, it appeared that Georgie and Darcy are going to get married, if the marriage can be approved by the King and Parliament (because Darcy is Catholic, Georgie has to officially remove herself from the line of succession to marry Darcy.)

One of my common complaints about series fiction is that the broader story of the series often does not move much during each individual book. This is the 11th book and Georgie and Darcy have had a romance going on since the beginning. It has been slow, but I do think the series is making progress, not just in the relationship, but historically.

This book has the looming, but not yet declared World War II as a real background. Hitler and Mussolini are not in the books as characters, but their presence in the world is frequently commented on and German military and the Nazi party is a significant part of the thread mystery of this book.

The mystery was not very mysterious. I am not particularly good at solving mysteries early, but even I knew pretty early on who the killer was. I enjoy the series because I have enjoyed the characters and the humor. The series has dragged the last several books. But On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service is better than the last several. Although there was not much in the book that was Frightful.

Always Enjoyable

I love this series and the narrator really brings it to life. When will the book be available???

Predictable, but enjoyable.

I've listened to the whole series, and I've really enjoyed them. My only complaint is how the author seems to recycle material and overly-introduces returning characters.
But on the whole, this was one of my favorites. As the series gets closer to WWII, the mysteries get more historically involved, and I like that.

Another fun romp

The only thing wrong with the Royal Spyness book is that they end too soon, because I devour them and then have to wait so long for the next one. I just can't get enough of Georgie and Darcy. There were a couple of plot points in this one that were a little obvious, but also others I thought were that turned out not to be. Another great fun Royal spyness romp.

Loved it!

Another fun and entertaining mystery with Lady Georgiana and others. Great story, characters and narration. Looking forward to the next book in the series...I have listened to all of them 😊

I can't wait until Book 12 comes out!!

I absolutely love these books by Rhys Bowen and the performance by Katherine Kellgren. Rhys Bowen is so good at balancing Romance, shenanigans, and mystery all into a fun story while Katherine kellgren does such an excellent job sucking you into the moment with her various accents and expressive reading!

Love The Series...Just One Thing

I love this series and have listened to all the books to date....but this one struggled a bit to get going. The author spent a little too much time getting to the meat of the story. Once there, it did not disappoint, but I felt a lot more effort could have gone into development of the actual story and a lot less on the happenings around the main character. Still, if you like the series, you will like the book.