A Royal Affair by Allison Montclair
The Right Sort Marriage Bureau is enjoying a modest success resulting from the publicity when proprietors Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge solved the murder of one of their clients. But they are completely unprepared for one of their new clients: Princess Elizabeth has her heart set on marrying a Greek prince, and the Palace wants Sparks and Bainbridge to look into some questionable rumors involving the prince's family.
If you have been watching The Crown on Netflix (and if you haven't, I strongly suggest that you do), you'll know from the first season that Prince Philip of Greece wasn't everybody's first choice to marry the heir to the British throne. But Princess Elizabeth was a headstrong young woman who had her heart set on Philip from the time she was 13. The plot of this historical mystery centers around a rumor that Philip's mother Princess Alice had an affair and that Philip was not the son of her husband Prince Andrea of Greece.
Unfortunately the murder doesn't happen until about halfway through the novel, and the victim is an unknown character who plays no part in the story. So the mystery is pretty uninteresting. It was nice to revisit some of the quirkier characters from the first book in the series (like Sally and Archie). Gwen doesn't cry as much as she did in the first book (although she still does a fair amount of crying) and Iris has a visit with a psychiatrist, but I would have liked to see more character development. It was a quick read and provided some escapism during the pandemic.
Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an e-ARC in exchange for a review. A Royal Affair will be published in late June 2020.
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