Above the Bay of Angels

Above the Bay of Angels

  - Rhys Bowen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I actually wanted to read 'Her Royal Spyness' by the author, but it was not available on the Kindle Unlimited subscription that I purchased, while this one was. Since it had a good rating, I picked it up to get a feel of the writing style of the author.

I think the only good thing about this book was that it was a quick and easy read, with a decent storyline. It is a historical fiction/romance; the small mystery doesn't come into play until 80% of the book, and it's easily solved. However, I liked the idea of a young woman making an inroad into an exclusive male domain of professional chefs, that too in the royal kitchen.

The writing style was too simple, even for me (and I am not into high literature), with a very juvenile voice. What I really disliked about the book was the extremely biased portrayal of Abdul Karim, which was incorrect to boot. It appears that the author didn't make any effort to research that part of history. Abdul stood by Victoria's side until her death, after which he was thrown out by royal family, which also tried to remove all evidence of his existence. His association with the Indian freedom fighters (as an Indian, I decline to call them rebels) was found to be a baseless allegation. If this was a creative license on her part, she should have clarified this in the epilogue section. Racial prejudice is very apparent in the depiction of Abdul, and if this was not merely to show the royals' attitude, the author could definitely have done it in a more sympathetic light.