Why Kings Confess

by C.S. Harris

Book Overview

Regency England, January 1813: The mutilated body of a young French doctor found in an alley beside a mysterious, badly injured woman entangles Sebastian in the deadly riddle of the "Lost Dauphin," the boy prince who disappeared during the darkest days of the French Revolution. Thrust into dangerous conflict with the Dauphin's sister--the imperious, ruthless daughter of Marie Antoinette--Sebastian finds his self-control shattered when he recognizes...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451418115
• ISBN13: 9780451418111
• Release Date: March 2015
• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

It's Baby Time!

As this is another one of my fangirl series I'm just warning there will be spoilers because so many very important things happened in this one! But first and foremost BABY!! I'm actually more excited about a fictional character having a baby than I am when my friends say they are having a baby. In my defense, the fictional character will never ask me for parenting advice and/or to hold their baby so I feel justified here. On a cold night, Gibson stumbles across the body of a woman just barely holding on to life, and near her, the corpse of a man who has had his heart hacked out of his chest. Gibson brings both the woman and the man's body back to his surgery and alerts Sebastian gruesome find. It doesn't take long for Sebastian to discover that the man is a Parisian doctor in London with a delegation from Napoleon to possibly start peace talks after France's brutal defeat in Russia. This means that his Father in Law, Lord Jarvis, immediately obstructs Sebastian investigation into this heinous crime. Once the young woman wakens from her ordeal Devlin discovers that not only is she a connection to his past he would rather forget but that this murder may be connected to the deposed French royal family. As Sebastian carefully wades through international politics to capture a murderer, he's also reeling from the news that his and Hero's child is breach and the only person that may be able to save both of their lives is a woman who swore she'd kill him. We finally find out what happened to make Sebastian sell out of the military and why he then spent the next little while getting into drunken brawls. Quite frankly I'm not sure I blame him. We also get to see a whole new side of Hero's Mom and I have to say I always thought Hero got her smarts from Jarvis, however, I've had to reassess that whole situation after this book. I really hope we see more of Lady Jarvis going forward. Sebastian still mad at his dad which I am really at the point of saying this has drug on long enough. Like yeah, Hendon did something pretty rotten but c'mon. Move on. Annnddd something hopefully good and permanent happens with Gibson!! Oh and Kat is only mentioned once. If we could get to zero times in the next book I'd be eternally grateful. On with the actual review. In terms of the actual book review, I was a little annoyed that Harris had something potentially bad happen with the pregnancy. I kind of figured she was going to but I really hoped she wasn't since it was a pretty cliche move. I like this series because it is one of the most unpredictable ones I've read so to make such a predictable plot in terms of Hero's pregnancy was a tad bit disappointing. Obviously not enough to make me lower the rating though. The mystery itself was one of the best yet. There were so many twists and turns just when I was absolutely sure I knew who the killer was I'd end up smack dab at a wall. The misdirects with this one were spot on too, I really thought the killer had to be the jealous husband (you'll figure out who that is early on) for most of the book. I wouldn't say I was completely in shock when the killer was revealed it just seemed too easy so I completely disregarded the character for most of the book. The thing I loved the most about this one though is that it deals with a "royal imposter". Honestly, I didn't realize how much I enjoyed these until I read Ariana Franklin's City of Shadows, which is loosely based on an infamous woman who claimed to be Princess Anastasia for most of her life. For the most part, I've only really looked at these I guess "phenomenons" for lack of a better term as historical footnotes at best, it never really crossed my mind that they could also make excellent plots for murder mysteries. But it completely makes sense when you think about it; anyone walking around saying that they were heir to a throne that simply doesn't exist for all intents and purposes in the aftermath of the varying revolutions in the 19th and 20th ce