Book Review: Assassin by Lady Grace Cavendish (Patricia Finney)

Assassin (The Grace Mysteries #1), by Lady Grace Cavendish, aka Patricia Finney
Release Date: September 28, 2004
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Pages: 194
Received: Library book
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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Summary:

Serving as a lady's maid for Queen Elizabeth I, Lady Grace is grudgingly faced with the task of choosing a husband out of three possible candidates selected by the Queen. The seemingly simple task is complicated when one of Grace's suitors is found murdered, another suitor is suspected, and her third suitor begins behaving in ways most strange. With the implicit permission of the Queen, Grace joins forces with a maid and a jester and sets out to solve the mysteries surrounding her suitors.

Review:

While this is the first book in a series, the story is complete and can easily be read as a standalone. Told in diary entries, the reader gets to know Grace well. Spunky and clever, Grace is sweet and interesting enough to engage older teens, but her emotional dilemmas will also resonate with younger readers. While everything comes together perhaps a little too neatly in the end, the mystery is sufficiently interesting (if not overly suspenseful) and the characters are engaging enough to overlook the saccharine ending.

A glossary of terms will help younger readers learn about objects, customs, events, and sayings of the time without dragging down the story with distracting historical explanations. While educative in this regard, the behavior of the characters is more modern, making the book less historically accurate, but probably more interesting for modern young readers. This is a good pick for pre-teens, some teens, and classroom shelves. I will probably pick up the series again at some point, but I'm not in a rush. The new cover for the bind up edition (books one and two) is pretty and seems aimed to attract a teen audience (whereas the old cover seems pretty clearly tween).

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