For readers, December is the best of months and the worst of months.  With the holidays and all the activities that involves from gift-buying, decorating, and baking, time gets precious and reading must take a back seat.  (And as any serious reader will tell you, it brings out the Grinch when reading needs to take a back seat.) 

 

The good side of December is that everyone knows you are a serious reader and books thus are a great gift.  And, even more likely, book cards make even greater gifts for readers.  So post-Christmas, there are sales to take advantage of and stacks of books to read. 

 

For those readers who can’t give up reading entirely, this is a good time to pick up some lighter books that are easy to put down.  Rhys Bowen’s “The Royal Spyness Series” fits that bill perfectly.  They are gentle mysteries with a lot of wit and just a dollop of romance. 

 

The heroine of the now 14 book series is Lady Georgiana Rannoch, daughter of a Scottish earl and 34th in line to the English throne through her relationship with Queen Victoria.  Being a member of the royal family sounds good, but it doesn’t bring anything very practical with it, like a salary.  Her brother’s new wife is not that fond of Georgiana and has cut off her allowance due to the Great Depression, and she heads off to London to stay in the family’s townhouse.  With no servants, Georgiana learns to deal with the realities of life and then with the body in the bathtub. 

 

So, begins her first foray into murder as she tries to prove her brother was not the murderer at the same time trying to do the Queen a favor by keeping an eye on the Prince of Wales’ overly affectionate relations with Wallis Simpson. 

 

Her Royal Spyness is a frothy, charming, and fun series.  The books in order are: “Her Royal Spyness,” “A Royal Pain,” “Royal Flush,” “Royal Blood,” “Naughty in Nice,” “The Twelve Clues of Christmas,” “Heirs and Graces,” “Queen of Hearts,” “Malice at the Palace,” “Crowned and Dangerous,” “On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service,” “Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding,” “Love and Death Among the Cheetahs,” and “The Last Mrs. Summers.”