An Unexpected Peril

Man, I fell in love with this series in the first couple of books but the last two instalments have been rather disappointing.

In this one, Veronica is relegated to masquerading as a missing princess for pretty much all of the book, Stoker seems almost like an afterthought sometimes, and then every chapter we're somehow reminded about how Veronica is the illegitimate daughter of the Prince of Wales and how all this royal pomp could have been her life! That is essentially a summary of events for the whole book.

There is a mystery somewhere here—how an experienced female mountain climber fell to her death—but we only seem to spend time discussing it and occasionally finding out titbits of information when it drops into our protagonists' laps, and then having the whole conclusion basically served up on a silver platter to them. The ending was pretty unsatisfying too: Princess Gisela was simply caught up in a snowstorm? It seems like an all together too convenient excuse for Veronica to keep up her masquerade as a princess.

While at the beginning of the series, Veronica's liberalism and independence was fun and endearing, of late she has begun to morph into basically a 21st century liberal American woman only dressing up in 19th century clothes. There are a lot of 21st century ideals in this book and while it's not exactly a cause for complaint, it often felt a bit like “The Victorian English were so backward, we are so much better and freer now.” I won't deny that there is an overall truth to that sentiment but it also felt so black and white here, leaving no room for nuances. Nothing is as binary as that.

There was one particular throwaway line in the book that also didn't sit well with me: when the mountain climber Alice Baker-Greene talked about how she got her summit stolen from her by a man, she noted that it was the other British alpinists who sided with the other dude because they love to side with their own gender, “while the Americans sided with me”. Uhh, misogyny was and is very much alive all around the world, in all echelons of society, on every side of the Atlantic, the Pacific, and every other ocean, so it just felt a bit too binary once again. Veronica and Stoker felt like they hated ye olde England just a bit too much, which makes one question why Raybourne chose this period and setting in the first place if her characters are going to hate it? It just seemed a bit like, choose a time period and country for its ~aesthetics~ but then spend most of your time focusing solely on the negative parts of its society and values and the people who lived in it.

I also felt that there was just no character development either. Veronica was headstrong and impulsive at the beginning of the book, basically insisting that there was foul play involved in Baker-Greene's climbing accident just because she wished it to be so. By the end of the book, she hasn't really changed. Stoker was only present in the capacity of bodyguard and occasional lover, rather than actually being Veronica's partner in crime. And, lest we forget from the continual assertions since one or two books ago, we are constantly reminded by Veronica about her royal lineage despite how much she disdained it and was glad that she hadn't turned out to be a princess after all. If she isn't thinking about how the diamonds are choking her, she's sniffing about how much she wanted to avoid seeing her grandmother, Queen Victoria, or suddenly in the presence of another royal relative or another for no real plot reason except to let the readers see how she's actually so royal beneath that devil-may-care exterior. This brings me back to my point in the earlier paragraph about setting this in the Victorian world. You can't say, “I'm using going to use the grandeur of royalty to puff my character up” while also saying, “royalty sucks and is a gilded cage and an outdated institution”. It just felt really contradictory sometimes.

But there are reasons why I fell in love with this series to begin with. I loved Veronica's voice and the writing. Some of that is still present here, a bit more in the first half. I did love the development of the characters, the action, and the mystery, but that is not so present here. So overall I'm probably going to give this a 3/5 for the remnants of Veronica's voice that I loved, and for old time's sake.

The publisher provided me with the opportunity to read this (via Edelweiss+).

I've enjoyed this series and I was really excited to be approved for an ARC for this one. Great read and I had no idea who was behind everything until the reveal. Can't wait for the next one to see what sort of trouble Veronica and Stoker find themselves in!

A little less royal intrigue, “a little more action please!” 🎵
Lamentably, this entry in the series really dragged; the ratios of political history, scandal among the peerage and dealing with unlikeable characters was far too high for my taste. Even if the lesson it suggests, how monarchy replaces living a life with a sense of duty or dissipation, and everyone in their orbit is similarly self-sacrificing or corrupt, is useful. Bright points include Veronica and Stoker eventually having a grown up conversation about insecurities and wanderlust, and actually getting out of England however briefly. Also the delightful absurdity of ‘sailor ex machina' 😉.