Rhys Bowen's fun novels

I’ve been a fan of her books for some time but was disappointed by the last one and it got me thinking.   She has 3 series -all light detective fiction.  The one I like best is about Lady Georgiana Rannoch, a young upper class woman who is “posh but poor”.  She is connected to the British Royal family but also has a Cockney policeman for her grandfather. She often gets involved in murder and other investigations and members of the Royal family appear in the books.  Mostly they are light and fun, with charming amusing characters such as Queenie, Georgiana’s clueless and ill trained maid, Claire Daniels, her actress mother, who is clearly based on Nancy Mitford’s Bolter.  Other occasional real life characters include Noel Coward.

However her last novel Heirs and Graces has the plot turning on something that seems to me quite implausible.  It is about a young Australian man who turns out to be the long lost heir to a title and estate in England.   The current Duke isn’t keen on having this uncouth young man as his heir, but he himself has refused to marry because he’s homosexual.   But part of the plot entails the present Duke, deciding that rather than having the Australian boy step into his shoes, he will adopt one of his male protégés such as his valet.     I don’t mind a little bit of “bending the realities” in a historical novel, especially a light work like this. However I think that the story of the Duke adopting someone as heir was not plausible.  At the end of the novel, a character points out that this would not be possible... since Ms Bowen certainly knows this... but it is left too late in the novel.  
The Duke’s family are all upset when he makes the announcement, that he will adopt someone and appear to take it seriously.  But no upper class family would be unaware that it was not possible to leave an entailed estate and title to anyone who was not a blood relation.I still enjoy the novels, but this story line was a bit of a jolt that took me out of the novel.   One of the problems of writing historical novels…

In some ways, it is tempting to liven up the story by reference to more scandalous if not well authenticated stories of the past.  And at times, there is a temptation to change attitudes so that the characters are more sympathetic to present day readers.   And at times, I think the temptation is there to simplify the work and make it more accessible, by using more modern language or by using a storyline such as the one in Heirs and Graces, which would make sense to a modern audience but which would have been utterly impossible at the time.

Having said all this, I still enjoy Rhys Bowen and Lady Georgiana and will read any other novels!