Romance, Espionage, and Empire: Palace of Spies by Sarah Zettel

A warning to all young ladies of delicate breeding who wish to embark upon lives of adventure: Don't.

Hard-won wisdom, earned the hard way by Peggy Fitzroy.

"I must begin with a frank confession. I became Lady Francesca Wallingham only after I met the man calling himself Tinderflint. This was after my betrothal, but before my uncle threw me into the street and barred the door.

Before that I was simply Margaret Preston Fitzroy, known as Peggy."

A orphaned poor relation, Peggy has enjoyed a pleasantly genteel upbringing in her resentful uncle's house, sharing lessons, fashions, and gossip with her cousin Olivia, also sixteen, until her uncle abruptly announces that he has arranged a marriage of convenience for her with Sebastian, the son of another influential merchant. On first sight, at her first grown-up ball, Sebastian seems not too bad, handsome and charming, but with a charm which quickly turns brutish when he assaults her in the garden. Rescued by an unlikely white knight, the rotund, middle-aged gentleman who calls himself Mr. Tinderflint, Peggy tries to put the experience behind her. But when Peggy refuses a forced marriage between herself and her assailant, her uncle casts her out of the house and she turns to Mr. Tinderflint, who makes her a very peculiar offer, to take the place of his ward at court, at a price.

"I will be as plain as I can.  Lady Francesca Wallingham was named one of the maids of honor to Caroline, our new Princess of Wales.  But Lady Francesca was struck by sudden illness while visiting at home and died of a fever.  It is our intent that you should take up the post in her stead."

It seems Peggy bears a striking resemblance to Francesca, and she is promised a crash course in courtly etiquette and entertainments to help with the impersonation, all to provide Mr. Tinderflint with a steady flow of information on the internal politics at court.  Having nowhere else to turn, Peggy agrees to the deception, but when she takes up the pretense of being Lady Francesca, she finds there there is more to her role than playing cards, flirting, and reporting royal gossip.

England's Hanoverian king, George I, is threatened by the ever-plotting and potentially powerful Jacobites, who scheme to restore the Scottish James to the throne, and Peggy soon discovers that Lady Fran had been up to her delicate eyebrows in royal treason, plotting with her lover, the purported footman Robert, to discover Queen's Anne's supposed Letter of Secession passing the crown to James and use it to overthrow the crown. Peggy fears Francesca's death was murder at the hands of a rival faction and realizes that she is caught between two unhappy prospects: she fears she will share the real Fran's fate if she cannot unravel the strands of the Jacobite conspiracy and she knows that if she is discovered to be a spy at court, she will face the gallows.

Sarah Zettel's forthcoming Palace of Spies (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) is a cracking good piece of historical fiction that has it all, a mystery with midnight trysts, documents sewn into the drapes and hidden in fireplace carvings, spies and counterspies galore, and deadly danger all the while, with a smart and witty heroine who cleverly navigates the mean girls among the ladies-in-waiting, carries out a role which rivals that of a stage diva, and wisely defers romance in pursuit of her goals. There are plenty of historical touches that will please costume drama buffs and a hold-your-breath conclusion in the dark, deserted Kensington Palace where Queen Anne died, all the elements which prove author Sarah Zettel the perfect mistress of her genre. A wicked page-turning romp through a turbulent period with a quick-witted heroine with the talent to trump the game.

Sarah Zettel, author of the popular American Fairy series and other science fiction and fantasy novels, promises that this book will be the first of a trilogy of historical fiction adventures for young adult readers.

Trafficking in Treason: Assassin's Masque by Sarah Zettel

It was a book room, and I needn't have bothered with the candle. A small brass lantern flickered on a round marble table. Next to this table, arrayed in her magnificent white silks, stood Sophy Howe.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

The birthday gala of the Hanoverian Prince of Wales is in full swing, with everyone in lavish costumes and masques, but Peggy Fitzroy, sent to court as a spy to uncover a plot to overthrow the crown, knows that her rival among Princess Caroline's ladies in waiting, Sophy Howe, is up to something when she follows her down the labyrinthine back corridors of St. James Palace, and into a small room.

"Peggy, you are always so original. What on earth do we find to talk about when your are not with us?" Sophy flashed one of her brilliant smiles as she brushed past me to the door. "Find me when you know the favor I have done you."

I was sure Sophy and Sebastian had wanted something in this room or had left something behind for others to find.

That was when I saw the loose panel.

It took a moment's nervous scrabbling the pry the little panel loose. There, in the central seam of the brickwork a narrow slit had been cut. And in that slit, I could see the edge of a paper. At last I was able to pull it free. It had been folded into a tight square, wrapped with pain blue ribbon sealed in plain blue wax.

I had seen ribbons and seals of this sort before--all on Jacobite letters.

The mysterious note contains a cryptic numerical cipher which reveals that the Jacobites, supporters of the banished Stuart ruler, are poised to invade England and take the throne back from Peggy's protectors, the imported rulers of the German House of Hanover, the Prince and Princess of Wales, But although she passes the message to her mentor, Lord Tierney, alias Mr. Tinderflint, Peggy senses that he himself may be a double agent, working for both the House of Hanover and the Jacobite James Edward Stuart, Pretender to the throne. She even fears that her recently returned father and Lord Lynhurst, brother to the brutal Sandford who almost forced her marriage to him, may also be working both sides of the conspiracy against each other. She has no one to trust but her cousin Olivia and her true love Matthew, and Peggy fears that Sophy has planted the note in order to make her appear enmeshed in Jacobite conspiracy, a sure way to lose your head, however pretty, in such times.

Quickly Peggy arranges a private audience with Princess Caroline and reveals what she has discovered.

"Yes," said the Princess. "It all fits.

What you have told me fits very well with other pieces of information recently relayed to His Royal Highness." She paused. "Once you bring your father here, you are done with this work." she said.

But, alas, Peggy Fitzroy is not yet done with her work as counterspy in the court of St. James, in Sarah Zettel's third book in the Palace of Spies series, Assassin's Masque (Palace of Spies) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016). There are more than enough romantic and power intrigues yet to be uncovered in this engrossing historical novel to make the usual high school social scene look like a picnic in the park.

As a teen protagonist, Peggy Fitzroy is unflappable, even rescuing her frenemy Sophy from possible death in a cellar in a delightfully opaque denouement that reveals many surprises, but leaves some secrets still undisclosed. High school history students who have "read the (history) book" may know, of course, that despite his viable claim, "the king over the water," James Stuart, never became king of England, but Zettel's conclusion leaves enough tempting threads still untied to promise that perhaps this series, framed as a trilogy, might yet yield another royal espionage thriller. "Like its heroine, Zettel's tale is still smarter and wittier than its rivals," says Kirkus Reviews.

Because of Zettel's skillful early exposition, Assassin's Masque (Palace of Spies) can stand on its own as a scintillating historical spy story, but who would want to miss the faux flirtations, fabled fashions, and fantastic feats of the redoubtable Fitzroy, victorious at high-stakes courtly card games and no stranger to breaking into dark and deserted palaces and out of dank and dangerous manor houses, in the earlier books, Palace of Spies and Dangerous Deceptions (Palace of Spies)? (See reviews here).

It's in the Cards! Dangerous Deceptions (Palace of Spies) by Sarah Zettel

I could not tear my mind away from Sebastian Sandford and his abrupt return to my life.

Given the manner in which I'd left my uncle's house and all that had happened since, it never occurred to me that anyone would want to enforce the betrothal contract that existed between my uncle and Sebastian's father. I'd assumed the contract was broken by my uncle's failure to bring me to the church. But now the horrible possibility that I had been wrong descended upon me. As an underaged girl, I remained completely under the control of my nearest male relative. I could be given in marriage to a street sweeper or sold to an indenture to the Virginia Colony, as he saw fit.

I will admit, given that my other choice was Sebastian, street sweepers and colonies had a certain appeal.

Peggy had thought that as a newly favorite maid-in-waiting at the court of the Hanoverian Princess and Prince of Wales, she was safe from the betrothal in which her nefarious Uncle Pierpont had attempted to bind her. Peggy had barely fought off Sebastian's most improper assault, and when she refused the marriage, she had been literally thrown out of her uncle's house, leaving her orphaned and on the street at the tender age of sixteen. But her mysterious benefactor, Lord Tierney, manages to place her at the Court of St. James, not from kindness, but to serve as an impostor, a spy against the Jacobite conspiracy working to place James Stuart on the throne of England.

Peggy has begun to feel safe at court, having mastered a proper courtier's art of flirtation, the endless little dishonesties at cards, and the rivalrous intrigues of the maids-in-waiting Mary and Sophie, and welcomes the loyalty of her friend Molly Lepell and her cousin Olivia, her true love, Matthew, and the special favor of the six-year-old dog-loving Princess Anne. But she is thrown off-balance by the appearance of Sebastian, whose powerful uncle, Lord Lynnfield, threatens to enforce their marriage contract against her wishes. Peggy's intuition tells her that Sebastian's reappearance is some sort of blackmail to ensure the complicity of her banker uncle, and she has a suspicion that Jacobite loyalists are behind it somewhere. Politics aside, Peggy knows she cannot sacrifice her love for Matthew and marry the brutal Sebastian at any cost.

It all comes down to a wager at cards, in which Lord Lynnfield offers Peggy freedom from the betrothal and a wager of a small fortune only if she can beat his nephew at the gambling table, witnessed by the Princess Caroline, Prince George, and the full court.

My prologue was over. The stage was ready for me. "Mr. Sandford," I said cheerfully, "I believe you asked me for a game of piquet when we last met."

Her Royal Highness had risen. She moved forward to join my party. It was not to be missed that His Royal Highness remained at her side.

"This is most irregular, Lord Lynnfield," she remarked.

But despite her sovereign's offer of support, Peggy agrees that the game go forward. Her opponent is careful not to win too quickly. At long last the deadly game comes down to the last trick.

I pressed my hand to my bosom. Dear God, I must have counted right.

He lay his cards down. "This hand is mine, I believe." The whole of the crowd gasped.

"And there it is, Miss Fitzroy. You're mine."

But, as it turns out, Peggy Fitzroy has a final card up her sleeve, or rather, inexplicably resting on the floor under Lynnfield's own foot.

Peggy turns the tables most literally, but there are plenty of swashbuckling abductions, daring rescues, and quite a dunking in the dank and fetid waters of the Thames before our heroine emerges, high and dry in a surprisingly revealing but unsuspected conclusion, one which assures her rapt readers yet another courtly adventure in the delicious forthcoming Dangerous Deceptions (Palace of Spies) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014).  Life at the court of the future King George I of England is anything but polite company, and author Sarah Zettel promises another historical fiction romp, a spy-in-the-salon page turner in this unique and riveting series, with its indomitable heroine Peggy Fitzroy overcoming cardsharpers, blackguards, murderous conspirators, and her cruelly confining corset stays to triumph over all.

To find out more about how Peggy Fitzroy finds herself in such a royal pickle, read my review of Book 1 in this series, Palace of Spies, here. And for those readers who just can't wait for another round of palace intrigues in the the third book in this trilogy, may I recommend Carolyn Meyer's The Wild Queen: The Days and Nights of Mary, Queen of Scots (Young Royals), reviewed here for  a lusty review of Jocobean conspiracies.