Books like A Murder for Her Majesty

I usually criticize books, and pick on every single bad thing about them. The characters are weak... The plot was limp, and "horrid"... Or, most terribly, the storytelling was atrocious. That wasn't the case with this book. And it pleasantly surprised me with no feminist sort of messages. "Girls can be like guys." "Girls are just as good as guys." "Girls aren't weak." "Girls are best." To those of you who know me well enough, you can probably imagine me saying those messages in a mocking tone.How I really hate those messages! So tiresome, and ultimately ruin a novel for me. And there was plenty of chances to do so in this book. Alice could have always been thinking up all the smart stuff. She could always be the hero. She could have become conceited and gotten a swollen head, and used her status to boss people around. Thank heavens she didn't. But what delighted me was the refreshing balance; she was witty, but not tiresomely. She was brave, but not in the way that makes one roll their eyes. A really wonderful character! I enjoyed her. Geoffrey kept me laughing. I enjoyed his witticism and his loyalty to his friends. Timothy was kind to Morris when I would have smacked him. I pleasantly hated "Father" whatsims. The Dame was easy to dislike, but one comes to see the softer heart at the ending. And although the introduction to Lady "Jenny" was brief, I ended up liking her! =) Good job, Hilgartner. The storytelling was, I'd have to say, really good, because it wasn't too slow so that I felt that it was wearisome, and wasn't too fast so that I couldn't catch what was going on. It was also intriguing and not from a narrative perspective (what some people might call an "I" book, from the perspective of the main character). This was a nice break, because lately I've been reading books that are like that. So I just happened to read this book at the right time.The funniest thing was that when they first mentioned Master Kenton (is that his name?), I thought, Oh, he's going to adopt Alice in the end. I didn't know anything about him. They hadn't said anything yet. But I just had this thought--and, obviously (spoiler!), this was not true, although I think he would have if he'd been allowed to. The plot was amazingly fantastic in the sense that it's quite out of this world. I never found out why it was that the men wanted to murder her father anyway, if it wasn't from the queen's orders. Why did they want to murder her? I don't know, but not every scrap of information is required to make a book a good one. So, reading this review, you'd think that I'd rate it five stars? Yes, why did I rate it four stars? I'm waiting for the perfect book to appear on the bookshelf one day. For now, I'd have to say that this is a clear favorite.