I listened to the audiobooks for the Embassy Row book series last year while I was seriously ill. A few thoughts:
First
I can’t say why, but for some reason I was and continue to be convinced that the author Ally Carter’s first name is pronounced the same way you would say that Japan is a US ‘ally.’ I’m pretty sure this is flat wrong, but the vibe feels right.
Second
These books are insane. Stop reading now if you want to avoid spoilers (this is a YA series published in 2015, you don’t care).
The premise is that our heroine Grace lives in the US embassy of an obscure European nation which was instrumental in world politics and also doesn’t exist. She lives there with her grandfather, as her mother is dead. She believes that her mother was murdered by a man with a scar, but she’s crazy, everyone tells her she’s crazy, and she really doesn’t want to believe that she’s crazy.
Spoiler: she’s crazier than you thought. Not only was her mother not killed by the man with the scar, but Grace herself killed her mother and has been operating in a state of quasi-functional false reality ever since the event, ruining the lives of various scarred men in the process (she needs to move a lot). Anyhow, to skip over a genuinely interesting psychological (which I just spoiled), it turns out the guy who she thinks killed her mother was actually faking her mother’s death (and was also in love with her). Why was she faking her own death? Great question, get ready for the reason why I gave up halfway through book three:
Her mother was a member of a secret society of ladies descended from the true heir to the throne of this obscure nation, and Grace is secretly meant to be a princess (I think, this part is fuzzy). Not only that, but this secret society has been a prime mover in history for the past several hundred years of its existence. The women pulling the strings have held immense coordinated power, stopping wars, choosing leaders, illuminati stuff. All of this gets revealed at the end of book one1 in a truly masterful way, but also the whole concept is looney.
Third
omeone made a fandom page for this book, proceeded to complete 15% of it, and then abandoned the work, but not before leaving us this nugget of wisdom proving that All Fall Down is the best book ever:
It’s just true lol, I can’t disagree
Fourth
I really did enjoy book one, it had some jaw-dropping moments. Book three was an international thriller/romance that lost a lot of the charm, but maybe someday I’ll finish it, who knows. The genre shift was just kinda goofy imo.
Fifth
I will not be taking questions on why I was thinking about a book set on embassy row specifically in October.