Reviews: (by author)

Cavendish, Lady Grace (Patricia Finney). The Lady Grace Mysteries: Book I Assassin. Book II Betrayal. London: Doubleday Random House, 2004. Hardback. $9.95. ISBN 0-385-60644-3, 0-385-60645-1.

This new series combines history and mystery in the adventures of Lady Grace Cavendish, Maid of Honour at the Court of Queen Elizabeth I. Her sidekicks are two servants, Ellie, a laundrygirl, and Masou, an acrobat. Comparison to Nancy Drew is inevitable, and, as a former Nancy Drew reader, I recommend these lively 16th century-set fiction-based-histories. Finney’s prose and characterizations are captivating, as she manages a slightly quaint dialogue and works in a solid, fascinating setting. There’s humor here too, including slapstick competition between Lady Grace’s palace-roommates; I don’t remember a lot of humor in Nancy Drew. Famous people too, of course, not just the queen. Francis Drake swashbucklingly appears in the second book. The plot twists in the first book, in which Lady Grace has to choose a husband (don’t worry—remember, plot twists), and the suitor-characters are distinct, believable, and vivid.

Queen Elizabeth is shown pretty much as you’d imagine here—saucy and commanding. Lady Grace is a proto-feminist, but manages to balance her adventures with a slim enough margin of decorum that she stays one of the queen’s favorites. The glorious and the grubby sides of Elizabethan England, courtiers to cowherds, Lady Grace depicts them first-person in her daybook and becomes an endearing character whose future we are looking forward to reading about.

Highly recommended
A. Allison, October 2004

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