The Royal Secret

A fledgling reporter covering the funeral of famous Irish actor Sir James Harrison finds herself chasing the story of a lifetime—a story that many in power would kill to keep quiet—in this compulsively readable but overlong romantic thriller from bestseller Riley (The Seven Sisters), originally published in 1997 as Seeing Double. Joanna Haslam is recently heartbroken and miserably covering celebrity gossip for the Morning Mail when a mysterious old lady at Sir James’s funeral puts her on the trail of what she at first assumes to be a sex scandal from the past. But when the old lady dies and her body goes missing, and Joanna’s own apartment is ransacked, she realizes she’s on to something big enough to be of grave concern to the British monarchy. Her investigation creates a rift with her lifelong best friend, Simon, and pulls her into the orbit of Sir James’s adult grandchildren: Zoe, a single mother guarding a scandalous secret of her own, and Marcus, a womanizer with a heart of gold whose charm Joanna futilely tries to resist. Chock full of shocking, if sometimes unbelievable, twists, this gripping novel is sure to keep Riley’s fans and new readers alike turning the pages. (May)