Rhys Bowen | Why do We Love the Royals?

On the Fourth of July the other day I found myself wondering why America so proudly celebrates its independence from Britain every year, champions equality and democracy, and yet is still so fascinated by the British royals. Their lives are followed more closely than those of any movie star. When I asked my Facebook followers two years ago to predict the new royal baby’s name I had thousands of replies (and several people got it right!) Equal interest with the birth of Princess Charlotte. And how we loved William and Kate’s wedding, as we did Charles’s and Diana’s before them.

So what is it about the royals that intrigues us so? I suppose because their lives are so different from ours. We’d all like to live in a palace, wouldn’t we? And be waited on by servants. And have everyone curtsey to us? What little girl hasn’t played at being a princess? And the most successful Disney movies all seem to involve princesses, from Snow White to Frozen. It is the ultimate fantasy for many people, although I have to tell you that I wouldn’t want their lives. I go on a book tour once a year when my new book is published. A week or so of flying to a new city every day, of being “on” all the time, having to make speeches, answer questions, pose for photos. It is lovely when fans turn out to my events and want to take me to meals and have pictures taken with me. It is also really tiring being gracious and witty and cheerful at every moment. At the end of each day I collapse onto that hotel bed and just want to fall asleep.

But the royal family does this every day--including the queen who is now approaching ninety. A usual day for them is an event in the morning touring a school or factory, opening a new wing of a hospital, welcoming an ambassador, then a luncheon somewhere else, another event in the afternoon and sometimes even an official dinner. And for them every moment they are being observed and in the spotlight. If the queen happens to yawn because she didn’t sleep well the newspapers take a picture and say she was bored with the performance. If she happens to smile when something important is happening, she’s not taking it seriously. She can never look bored, or annoyed, or even surprised. And she often can’t go to the loo for hours—something else to remember.

So no, I would not like their lives. I wouldn’t even like servants hovering over me or helping me to get dressed. But I suppose they take that part for granted. The heroine of my Royal Spyness novels certainly does when we first meet her. She’s only a minor royal, thirty-fifth in line to the throne and second cousin to the king, but she’s grown up in a drafty castle with servants waiting on her. It’s only after she strikes out on her own that she realizes how little she knows about the outside world and how ill-equipped she is to survive. It’s a steep learning curve until she can make her own tea and toast!

But luckily in my new book, MALICE AT THE PALACE, she has returned to the lifestyle in which she was raised. She is again among royal kin, at Kensington Palace, helping a foreign princess prepare for her wedding to the king’s youngest son. You’d think this was an assignment in which nothing could go wrong for Lady Georgie, wouldn’t you? But she does have her maid with her… probably the worst ladies maid in the history of the world being let loose at Kensington Palace in the presence of foreign royalty… a perfect recipe for disaster. Yet all is going relatively smoothly until a dead body turns up in the archway under the haunted clock tower. Not only that, but it’s the body of the bridegroom’s former mistress. And it’s Georgie’s job to prevent any whiff of scandal from leaking to the press. Who would want to be a royal? Not Georgie!

About Rhys Bowen

Rhys Bowen is the New York Times Bestselling Author of the Royal Spyness Series, Molly Murphy Mysteries, and Constable Evans. Winner of the Agatha Best Novel Award and nominated for the Edgar Best Novel Rhys's titles have received rave reviews around the globe.

Rhys Bowen was born in Bath, England, of a family that was half Welsh, half English. She was educated at London University and then began her career with the BBC, where she became a drama studio manager. She had made up stories all her life. While working on a boring play she decided to write a play of her own. With the bravado of a 22 year old she marched into the office of the head of BBC drama and handed him the script. Two days later he summoned her and told her that they were going to produce the play… Rhys has never looked back.

The British climate forced Rhys to escape to Australia where she worked for Australian Broadcasting before meeting her future husband, a fellow Brit who was on his way to California. So Rhys packed up again and found herself in San Francisco where she settled and has lived ever since, raising four children.

Finding nothing like the BBC in San Francisco, Rhys turned to writing children’s books under her married name, Janet Quin-Harkin. Her first picture book was an immediate success and won several awards. More picture books followed, then her agent asked her to write a book for young adults. This was a turning point in Rhys’s career. Her first young adult novel was an instant hit. By her third she was selling half a million copies. Many more popular YA novels followed until Rhys decided she had said all she wanted to say about teenage love and angst, and she turned her real love—mysteries.

The sort of books she loves to read are those with a great sense of time and place. So she considered where to set a series of her own and chose the mountains of North Wales, where she had spent many happy childhood vacations and used her grandfather’s name as her nom de plume. Constable Evan Evans was the hero of these novels that took place in a tiny fictitious village in Snowdonia. The series was well received from the start. The second book, Evan Help Us, was nominated for a Barry Award. Evan’s Gate achieved the ultimate success when it was nominated for the Edgar best novel—the highest prize in mysterydom.

But it was a chance visit to Ellis Island that made Rhys start thinking in a new direction. The spunky and not always wise Molly Murphy came into her head, fleeing from Ireland and finding herself implicated in a murder on Ellis Island in the first book, MURPHY”S LAW. This book won the Agatha Best Novel award, plus three others. Every subsequent book in the series has received awards, nominations and glowing reviews. Book eleven, HUSH NOW, DON'T YOU CRY, was published in March 2012 and went straight to the New York Times bestseller list.

Never one to rest on her laurels Rhys reacted to the gloom and doom of real life by creating a second heroine—this one aimed to amuse. She is Lady Georgiana, 34th in line to the British throne but utterly penniless and struggling to make her own way in the cruel world of the Great Depression. Her Royal Spyness was a bestseller, nominated for many awards and instantly endeared readers to her heroine. The following books have all received award nominations. The 2011 book, Naughty in Nice started off with a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and was then nominated for an Agatha, Bruce Alexander and RT Reviews award. The audio version is also nominated for an Audie. In April 2012 it won the Agatha Award for best historical mystery.

As well as novels Rhys has written many short stories, including an Anthony winner. She is an ex chapter president of Mystery Writers of America and appears in Who’s Who in America. When not writing she loves to travel, sing, hike, paint, play her Celtic harp and spoil her grandchildren.

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About MALICE AT THE PALACE

Lady Georgiana Rannoch won't deny that being thirty-fifth in line for the British throne has its advantages. Unfortunately, money isn't one of them. And sometimes making ends meet requires her to investigate a little royal wrongdoing.

While my beau Darcy is off on a mysterious mission, I am once again caught between my high birth and empty purse. I am therefore relieved to receive a new assignment from the Queen—especially one that includes lodging. The King's youngest son, George, is to wed Princess Marina of Greece, and I shall be her companion at the supposedly haunted Kensington Palace.

My duties are simple: help Marina acclimate to English life, show her the best of London and, above all, dispel any rumors about George's libertine history. Perhaps that last bit isn't so simple.

George is known for his many affairs with women as well as men—including the great songwriter Noel Coward. But things truly get complicated when I search the Palace for a supposed ghost only to encounter an actual dead person: a society beauty said to have been one of Prince George's mistresses.

Nothing spoils a royal wedding more than murder, and the Queen wants the whole matter hushed. But as the investigation unfolds—and Darcy, as always, turns up in the most unlikely of place...the investigation brings us precariously close to the prince himself.