It is the first day of March in the Year or Our Lord 1570 near eleven of the clock and the Lady Grace Cavendish, youngest Maid of Honor for Queen Elizabeth I, has opened a new daybooke to record the daily happenings. She pens the Elizabethan court to life and introduces us to Queen Elizabeth and the other members of the court. She reveals her companion Maids of Honor and speaks of the ill Lady Carmina. Her words capture the court painters and their Workroom, the Master of Revels and a new company of players. Things happen and happen quickly; but we soon learn all is not well in the castle.

Lady Grace fears a poisoner is in their midst and the Lady Carmina’s illness is unnatural. With the help of her friends Ellie, the laundrymaid, and Masou, the young acrobat, Lady Grace examines the evidence, follows the suspects, and makes her case. Finally she shares her suspicions with the Queen, who urges her to continue her investigation, but discreetly, and commands her to find out who among them is at fault.

Feud is the sixth in the Lady Grace Cavendish mysteries but can easily be read out of sequence without any loss of reading pleasure. This is a fast-paced historical mystery that will please any historical reader. Mystery lovers will quickly fall in love with the Queen’s young “pursuivant” (one who pursues someone else). She is funny, impish, with a quick eye for detail. The writing is skillful, the story engaging. The characters are a delight.

From the beginning, voice sets the tone, the place, and the character, as when Lady Grace describes Penelope as a “pale slip of a thing, and always takes Lady Sarah’s advice on colours to wear. Today she has new beeswax and crushed New World beetles in it on her lips to make them pink. She has some on her front teeth and it looks terrible.” The smallest detail of the Elizabethan world is brought out, such as when the young painter Nick Hilliard tells her of a yellow color “made from the urine cows fed on special kind of leaf in the Indies.” Grace is not surprised. Ellie had already explained how the laundrymaids sometimes “use ten-day-old urine to clean clothes in the laundry.” (“It makes you think twice about wearing your shirts, really it does,” Grace wrote.)

This Lady Grace mystery is skillfully told but the book holds so much more. Grace, herself, is alive and her voice so captures her world and her life that we don't even realize how much more than the solution to the mystery is being learned. Feud is an entertaining read with an engaging protagonist who demonstrates that no matter what world you live in, there are some things that never change and remain universal to us all.

While Feud is suggested for readers 8-12, the story has the ability to captivate a wide range of readers. A glossary, author notes, even a Facts Behind the Fiction section are provided at the end. Now, the book and the publisher's website list Lady Grace Cavendish as the author; however, it is noted that previous books in the series have listed Jan Burchett and sometimes Patricia Finney as authors. No matter, if Feud is anything like the earlier books, the series is highly recommended.