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December 05, 2008
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 | The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig | Reviewed by Harriet Klausner |  | Publisher:Dutton
http://www.us.penguingroup.com
ISBN: 0525948600
Genre: Fiction
Subgenre: Historical
Release date: Feb 2005
Format: Hardcver
Pages: 400
Price: $19.95 | Harvard graduate student Eloise Kelly is writing her thesis on the early nineteenth century dashingly romantic English spies, the Scarlet Pimpernel, the Purple Gentian, and especially the Pink Carnation. The first two were unmasked by Napoleon’s agents as Sir Percy Blakeney and Lord Richard Selwick, but the identity of the Pink Carnation never was revealed. Eloise receives a grant to research her dissertation in England, so she ends her relationship with her boyfriend, which is made easier when she catches him in the cloakroom with an art history major.
Eloise believes that the Pink Carnation is somehow related to the Selwick family of Purple Gentian fame. She visits Mrs. Arabella Selwick-Alderly at Selwick Hall, who provides her with access to a large trunk filled with family letters from the Napoleonic era. Arabella suggests that Eloise start with the intriguing account of Amy Balcourt on a trip to Paris in 1803 where she meets Richard Selwick. As Amy and Richard play spy-counterspy, they share in common efforts to keep Napoleon from invading England and a growing attraction. Meanwhile in the present, Eloise plays historical spy-counterspy with Colin Selwick; but where this romance will go only time will tell.
This treat of a tale occurs in two time periods with the brunt of the storyline happening in the early nineteenth century. Readers will enjoy the Regency era gender battles between two fine protagonists yet also appreciate that this is being fed to the audience via present day characters in a chick lit setting. Though how easily she attains the letters seem odd as no outsider had access before, the dual themes merge into a finely blended fabulous romance. | | |
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