The Secret History of the Pink Carnation: Review

So I have to say to all of you: I love Historical Fiction.

Sometimes, it is the most advanced form of Fantasy Fiction that there could ever be. Now when I refer to this, I am refering to that small sub-genre of books that take place in historical setting in the real world, but something has been tweaked for Fiction's sake. An example (though not neccessarily a good book) being "The Other Bolyn Girl". How many times has one wondered what the story of Anne Bolyn is like from her older and more experienced sister? Needless to say, Let me give you a quick rundown. This book actually is two parts. One part takes place in the present and the other takes place in the era of Napoleon.

The main character (or at least one of them), a Harvard graduate student named Eloise Kelly is fascinated with the REvolution of France. She knows that the French eventually unmasked the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian, famed spies in the Napoleonic wars, but as discovers that the identity of the Pink Carnation, another spy, remains a mystery. While working on her history dissertation in London in search of any information on the Pink Carnation, Eloise gets access to a trunk of papers and documents from the early 19th century. This trunk, she is told with assurance, holds the key to the mystery of who the Pink Carnation really is, and as she reads through these letters, the reader is suddenly plunged into a novel within a novel, told from the viewpoint of Amy Balcourt, the second (and more interesting) of the two main characters.

Amy, exiled to rural England with her mother, now wants to avenge, with the help of her cousin Jane, her father's death at the hands of the French. She hopes to be in league with the Scarlet Pimpernel, who heroically tried to save her father. Willig, the author and a Harvard graduate student herself, paints a picture of the tumultuous era with amazing ease and fantastic eye. She also makes the sparks fly between Amy and the Purple Gentian, a dashing English nobleman in charge of Egyptian antiquities for Bonaparte. The whole novelization of the letters is dramatric and breathtaking and fascinating

But when the Pink Carnation's identity is finally revealed after many obvious clues, the reader wonders why it took Eloise so long to get it. Seriously, it wasn't that hard to figure out, just by reading the back of the book. I figured it out when Eloise started to read the letters. More critically, Eloise's appearances come to seem like awkward intrusions into Amy's-and the Pink Carnation's-more intriguing story. Sometimes I dreaded the fact that we were coming back to the present, when all I wanted was to continue with Amy; amusing and interesting and 3 sided Amy, bnot dull, dreary, and over-reactive Eloise.

Needless to say, this book starts out as Historical Fiction, but then later turns into something more akin to Historical romance. Though not really a "boddice-ripper", this was a fantastically laid out story. Go read it. I'll have it on the Shelfari later tonight and give you a link to amazon too.