This review contains affiliate links, which earn me a small commission when you click and purchase, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my small business and allowing me to continue providing you a reliable resource for clean book ratings.
Mullory Prudence isn’t exactly living a charmed life; her mom disappeared some years back after burning their house down. Her grandmother, who’s raised her since, is seriously ill. Her peers think Mullory is weird.
One really important message her mom told her before she disappeared was to “run if the strange finds you.” She’s not sure what that means, but when letters start appearing in impossible places, like a sealed bag of dog food, Mullory knows she needs to ignore them.
Eventually, though, curiosity wins, and she learns that she is being given a chance to inherit a substantial fortune. That’s impossible to resist, since she would do anything to help her grandmother.
So off Mullory goes to the estate of Xavier Stoutmire, who died without leaving an heir. She finds out soon after arriving that she and his great-nephews and nieces, as well as another non-family member, like her, are going to be competing in a contest to solve his murder. Whoever determines who the killer was and how and why they murdered Xavier will become his heir.
The huge house and billions of dollars are certainly a big draw, but as it turns out, Xavier and his family are part of a magical community. Each has different magical powers. And not only will the winner inherit his fortune, but they will receive his magic, too.
Mullory is generally appalled by the whole story, as she pieces it together a bit at a time. The family is beyond dysfunctional. The magic is often scary, or at least can be used to do horrible things. And the fact that Xavier set up a whole magical game to solve the murder he was told would surely come is just twisted. But once she’s in, she’s in. Because not only does she need the money, but she may need to just stay alive.
Mystery Royale is a magical version of The Inheritance Games. It was interesting and clever but I really didn’t care much for many of the characters for a lot of the book. That did slowly change over the course of the story, but I didn’t get attached to them a lot, or definitely not like those in Barnes’ books. Largely entertaining, though.
Rated: Moderate. (Could be close to a mild.) Profanity includes 35 instances of moderate profanity, about 45 uses of mild language, and a dozen instances of the name of Deity in vain. Violence includes frequent peril of various types. This magical world is pretty casually dangerous, and people have to watch their backs.
Click here to purchase your copy of Mystery Royale on Amazon.
