Kyra is readying the household and family for Christmas, which this will be spent with her husband's family,
At Windsor Castle, because her husband is one of the grandsons of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. This bugged me through the whole story, that Elizabeth only had four children, and the story doesn't bless her with a fifth child in a slightly alternate timeline to our own. Who is his royal parent? Not Charles, obviously. In Kyra's conversation with Princess Anne, it's clear that Anne's not her mother-in-law. One hopes not Andrew, the utter disgrace of the family. That leaves Edward, and in the few references to the Earl and Countess of Wessex, well, it's not ruled out.
Maybe this bothers no one but me. It does bother me, though, that Nicholas, in order to be the grandson of Elizabeth, needs to have a parent who was Elizabeth's child, and this detail is never clarified in any way.
This is an otherwise charming little short story, about Kyra trying to cope with some of the changes in her life. Having married Nicholas a few years ago, in a previously published book, she and her husband now have a four-year-old daughter, and Kyra's sister has been seeing a cousin of Nicholas, Lord Rhys Corbin, a comparatively minor royal. They will be arriving together--with a surprise announcement that leaves Kyra feeling excluded from her younger sister's life.
She's also missing her family in America, whom they would have been spending Christmas with if not for the death of the Duke of Edinburgh leading to the decision that the whole royal family should gather at Windsor Castle this year, and altogether, Kyra is venting her stress by being a bit controlling. We have moments when I want to give Kyra a slap, and warm, touching moments, and a happy Christmas ending.
Flawed but enjoyable.
I received this short story for free, as a gift for subscribing to the author's newsletter, and am reviewing it voluntarily.
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