Revenge, Served Royal is book 3 in Celeste Connally’s series, Lady Petra Inquires, a Regency-era mystery series.
Petra has been invited to Windsor Castle to judge a baking contest as part of a larger celebration for the king and queen’s wedding anniversary. There she reunites with a chef who once worked for her family, but before the competition begins, the chef is murdered, and Petra is determined to clear the name of the young man who was accused of the murder.
This was my first book in this series, and in my opinion it’s easily read as a standalone. The mystery is new, and fully resolved by the end of the book. There are relationships and characters that carry on from previous books, and mentions of past events, but nothing that would confuse the reader, in my opinion.
The story is told in third person from Petra’s point of view. I love third person limited point of view so I enjoyed this aspect.
I found the mystery interesting, and enjoyed Petra’s efforts, supported by her friends, to solve the murder. The characters were interesting, as were the other events of the celebration.
There were a few things that bugged me. One of them being the fact that as part of the story, Petra was hesitant to confront someone close to her who was a suspect. She was determined to solve the mystery to clear the young man who was accused, but even though talking to the person could have at least sent her in another direction to investigate, she actively tried to avoid the person. It was really rather annoying.
The other thing that bothered me was her relationship with Duncan. Maybe I’m picky because I’m an avid reader of historical romance, specifically Regency era romance, but the way the author treated the relationship really bothered me. Petra is a young unmarried (not a widow) woman, and she is openly carrying on a romantic, and intimate, relationship with a man, and everyone apparently knows all about it. People she doesn’t even really know, are aware of the nature of their relationship.
According to everything I understand about that period, being so open about such a relationship would have made Petra a social outcast, considered not fit for polite company. I am not against a romance in a mystery series like this, but I don’t understand the way it was treated with such a contemporary view. The intimate scenes were not explicit, in fact they were almost closed door, so it’s not even like the author wanted to include spicy scenes. I just felt like it threw me out of the story, which kind of ruined it for me.
Overall I did enjoy the story, and I would recommend it to anyone who is not so bothered by the more contemporary treatment of relationships in a historical setting. Personally I would have been happier if the characters had at least attempted to keep their relationship under wraps, especially as Petra seems to have an aversion to marriage which is not explained in this book.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Revenge, Served Royal will be available on November 11 2025.
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