meganbmoore | The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig (Reply)

Eloise Kelly is a Harvard grad student working on her dissertation in England. In her world, Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel, was real, and succeeded by at least two spies in the Napoleonic Wars, the Purple Gentian, Sir Richard Selwick, and the Pink Carnation, whose real identity was never discovered. Her dissertation is supposedly on aristocratic espionage, but her real goal is to discover the true identity of the Pink Carnation, her favorite of the spies, who she’s idolized and been half in love with her whole life. After dead ends, rejections, and being flatout ignored, she finally received permission to visit a descendant of Selwick’s, Mrs. Selwick-Alderly, who allows her to read family letters from the period.

The letters were written by Amy, a half-french girl whose father was killed in the French Revolution, and who, in the first of the letters, is being summoned to France to live with her brother. Amy idolizes the Purple Gentian, and hopes to become one of his informers. On the trip to France, naturally, she meets and clashes with Richard Selwick.

When I first heard about The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, I had thought that it would focus more on Eloise and her academic geekery and trying to solve the mystery of the Pink Carnation’s identity, and that the past story would be letters or diary entries or something. Instead, most of the book focuses on Amy and Richard’s story, which is in standard prose and has a pretty light, modern voice-which, actually, could probably be explained as Eloise’s interpretation of the events Amy relates (really, it only makes sense if you assume that Eloise’s imagination is filling in the holes from Amy’s letters)-which seems to have originally been conceived as a romance novel. There’s all sorts of spy shenanigans and some actual historical weight at times, but it’s mostly a light, fun romp. Eloise’s story only has a few chapters, and those chapters have mixed results with me. Only the one hand, I love the idea of them. On the other, they tend to be a bit catty, and Willig has a habit of using Eloise to tell us how we’re expected to react to certain parts of Amy’s story.

I like spy stories, but they tend to very much be a Guy thing, as far as actual spying goes, and so I decided early on that the Pink Carnation being a woman was an absolute requirement, and it not being Amy or her cousin Jane seemed to be an absurd idea by the halfway point. But…I really don’t trust fiction not to let me down with such things. In the end, it’s Jane, not Amy, who is the famous spy. Of the two, I prefer Jane, who is very practical and has a lot of common sense, and so I am happy. Though, I admit that I had been enjoying viewing Eloise’s obvious eventual romance with Colin, a descendant of Amy and Richard’s, and Eloise subconsciously using Colin as a proxy for Amy, who she’s unknowingly (had that been the case) had a crush on her entire life. But then, I’m influenced by plenty of cases of men using women as emotional, more acceptable, proxy for other men, so I’m biased. But really, this is an actual quote:

"My dashing hero, my paragon of manhood, my lover of moonlit daydreams, was a woman."

Of course, this is an actual quote, too:

"Drop those thumbscrews and step away from my son."
"Mother?"

How can I resist that?

This is the first of several books, using Eloise’s story as a framework and focusing on different fictional spies connected to Richard and Amy. I suspect the gimmick may end up stretched pretty thin by the end, but it promises entertaining romps and the probability of lady spies.

Also, when I grow up, I want to be a spinster who pokes Napoleon in the ribs and scolds him for being rude and invading other countries.