It takes quite a lot to keep a long-running series fresh, and 15 books in, Rhys Bowen’s Royal Spyness saga is feeling some fatigue. In GOD REST YE, ROYAL GENTLEMEN, yet another cozy Christmas mystery and required surveillance of the wayward Prince of Wales on behalf of the Queen makes the story repetitive. One hopes that, as the series starts to catch up to events in the “real world,” using the 1930s timeline will allow our characters to confront historic problems.

"[Lady Georgie] reaches out to her loved ones, reacquainting readers with a fan-favorite cast of quirky individuals.... [W]ill we see the real world invade Georgie’s bubble? We’ll be reading to find out."

As the book opens, Lady Georgie is excited to settle in for her first Christmas as a married woman. She seems to have gotten everything she’s wished for this year --- a handsome husband and a country house to use as her own. But she’s lacking enough friends and family nearby to throw a house party, which is a prerequisite for a British aristocrat during the holiday season. So she reaches out to her loved ones, reacquainting readers with a fan-favorite cast of quirky individuals.

Georgie has a Christmas celebration nearly ready to go. But this time, her new aunt-in-law, on behalf of Queen Mary, requests that she uproot herself and visit the royals at Sandringham. Thus the mechanisms of the plot only begin to creak into motion after a good chunk of the book has already passed. It turns out that Queen Mary, yet again, wants Georgie to keep an eye on the Prince of Wales --- who she thinks might be in danger --- and, of course, the Prince’s paramour, Wallis Simpson. But when royal attendants begin to kick the bucket, there might be more than Georgie ever anticipated under the mistletoe.

The book’s repetitious nature appears in Georgie’s own point of view, as even she recalls another Christmas house party gone wrong. Queen Mary’s intense concern, Wallis being obnoxious, Georgie being insecure about her marriage, and the supporting cast being charming are all there once again. But it’s getting harder for Bowen to avoid the fact that the Nazis are rising to power in Germany at this time --- and harder for Georgie to remain the charmingly naïve aristocrat she always has been. Georgie’s mother’s blithe association with a Nazi-affiliated lover is uncomfortable, as is Georgie’s own willful ignorance. By the end of the story, we have begun to see her mature into more of a grownup than she previously had been.

But will we see the real world invade Georgie’s bubble? We’ll be reading to find out.