Zettel, Sarah. Palace of Spies.

Zettel, Sarah.  Palace of Spies.  Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt Brace  2013  362p  $16.99  ISBN 978-0-544-07411-8     ms/hs Historical fiction  VG-BN    

The early 18th century was a difficult time in England.  After the death of Queen Anne, George I was the closest royal relative who was a Protestant.  James II and his son Charles had been cut out of the succession because they were Catholics.  Times were hazardous for many people.  Peggy Fitzroy, a sixteen-year-old orphan, has been summarily dismissed from her uncle’s household because she refused to marry the man he had chosen for her.  Left utterly without funds or future, she responds to the offer from a strange man who claims to know her mother.  She is asked to take the place of Mr. Tinderflint’s niece, the dead Lady Francesca, as a lady-in-waiting to Caroline, Princess of Wales.  She is to share any political information that she discovers with Tinderflint and his associates.  Life at the royal court is a wonderful change from her previous life, but Peggy begins to notice inconsistencies and the dangers arising from her new position.  She will have to decide which side of the political battle between the Jacobeans and the Georgians is the correct one for her and then how to resolve her masquerade and save her own neck.

This sprightly, well-written and exciting time-travel adventure is utterly fascinating.  It offers a clever mystery and suspenseful historical fiction in a well-paced tale with engaging characters.  The plot is rich and interesting, the locations are beautifully rendered, and the characters are very three-dimensional.  The story is told through Peggy’s voice.  She and her friends come from different places in society and offer different points of view on the situation.  The author mixes adventure, political intrigue, mystery, an eighteenth-century background, and a little romance into this very well done book.
     

Summary: Peggy Fitzroy, a sixteen-year-old orphan, has been summarily dismissed from her uncle’s household because she refused to marry the man he had chosen for her. Left utterly without funds or future, she makes the decision to take on the identity of a dead girl and become a spy in the guise of a lady-in-waiting to Caroline, Princess of Wales in eighteenth-century London.  The author mixes adventure, political intrigues, mystery, an eighteenth-century background, and a little romance into this very well done book.   

Spies-Fiction                                                     --Susan Ogintz