Rhys Bowen - some spoilers

I have just read one of Bowen’s Georgiana series, which takes us up to the marriage of Georgie and her Irish boyfriend Darcy O’Mara.

It was a charming read, and I enjoyed it... and am looking forward to the next one which is set in the Happy Valley scandals of Kenya in the 1930s.

In “Four Funerals and maybe a Wedding”, Georgie is preparing for her wedding... and Darcy is away on one of his secret missions.

The Funerals refer not only to deaths among the villains, but also deaths within Georgiana’s circle.   Her friend Belinda is back, having given birth to a baby abroad.  She has taken up her designing work again and is insisting that she has given up on men…

One of the deaths has an effect on Georgie’s mother Claire… a former actress who has spent most of her life as a “Bolter”, moving from one man to another.  She had been planning to marry Max, a German industrialist... Now, his father has died... and he has postponed the wedding.  Possibly Bowen wanted to detach Claire from her unfortunate link with Nazi Germany.

The other death is of Hettie Huggins, an older widow, who was engaged to Albert, Georgie’s working class grandfather... Georgie loves her grandfather and did not think that Hettie was right for him... So when she dies of a heart attack, there is an element of relief…

We also find that Binky, Georgie’s half-brother, the Duke of Rannoch, is finally beginning to stand up to his awful domineering wife, Hilda (known as Fig)... She is something like Fanny Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility....

Georgie has been busy with her wedding preparations when she gets a letter from her former stepfather, Sir Hubert.  He is a rich man who travels abroad often...and who wants to make her his heir.  
He has a large house, and offers her the use of it so she and Darcy will have a home.

 When she moves in to look at the place, the staff are very odd and hostile. Georgie learns to assert herself, and solves the mystery...and gets some experience of running a household.  She has the aid of her grandfather, a former policeman, and her clumsy but good natured maid, Queenie…

Queenie has now improved somewhat since their trip to Ireland and though she is still not much good as a lady’s maid, she has learned to cook and is considering a career as a cook…  there are even hints of a possible romance for her…

The novel ends with Sir Hubert’s return which seems to indicate a possible reconciliation with Georgie’s mother who was married to him years ago. And of course with Georgie’s wedding.

She and Darcy marry in a Catholic church... and have the little Princesses as bridesmaids.  All goes well... and she does not fall over or tear her dress!  And she and Darcy have a lovely honeymoon…