Leopard in Exile (Carolus Rex, Book 2) (Hardcover)

by Andre Norton (Author), Rosemary Edghill (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Jane Austen meets James Bond in The Leopard in Exile, the second book in the Carolus Rex alternate-history fantasy series. The authors blend political intrigue, espionage, Regency romance, and magic, both black and white, to create what Harry Turtledove calls "a captivating adventure."

If you haven't read The Shadow of Albion, an authors' foreword provides background: "The point of divergence here is the affair of the Duke of Monmouth." Historically, James, Duke of Monmouth and the eldest known illegitimate child of Charles II, led an unsuccessful uprising against his uncle, the Catholic James II, in 1685. He was beheaded and his followers and supporters executed. In Norton and Edgehill's universe, Charles II married Monmouth's mother secretly before becoming king and making a childless state marriage. Upon Charles's death, Monmouth was crowned Charles III, continuing a Protestant Stuart line on England's throne.

It is now 1807. The demon-worshipping Duc d'Charenton, who's known as Marquis de Sade in our world, is conjuring black magic. Though he serves Emperor Napoleon through French spymaster Talleyrand, de Sade plots to find the Holy Grail, exult Satan, and destroy the only remaining member of France's royal family, the dauphin Louis Capet. Louis escaped France aided by the Duke of Wessex, Rupert St. Ives Dyer, an agent for England's intelligence service. He got to Baltimore, New Albion (England's North American Colonies, since no American Revolution occurred) with his wife, Meriel, and then disappeared.

Meriel writes to Sarah, Duchess of Wessex, to beg for help. Sarah, originally from Baltimore in our universe, decides to go to Meriel's aid and see New Albion. Wessex, returning from an urgent mission, follows his wife. Unfortunately, de Sade has been named governor of French Louisianne (no Louisiana Purchase occurred here) and is on his way. All will meet in Nouvelle Orl eèans.

Readers who admired J. Gregory Keyes's Newton's Cannon, Lois McMaster Bujold's A Civil Campaign, and Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Partners in Necessity will find this series very much their cup of tea. --Nona Vero

From Publishers Weekly
Veterans Norton and Edghill's sequel to The Shadow of Albion (1999) fails to do full justice to its rich setting and promising premise an early 19th-century alternative world where the American Revolution never happened and where magical spells are as real as rapiers. Since there's been no Louisiana Purchase, Napoleon is free to put the Marquis de Sade in charge of New Orleans. Swarms of characters work to thwart de Sade's diabolical schemes as well as to reunite lovers. Thomas Jefferson is just a loyal colonial official, so if anyone is to act fast enough to save North America from de Sade, it'll have to be an uneasy alliance of secret agents. Meanwhile the tribal deities of the unsubjugated Indians are as powerful as the Christian saints in trying to influence the future. Despite all the action, the story never comes to life. Maybe there are too many characters to keep track of, let alone care about, in short scenes that jump all over the landscape. Maybe this being the second book in a series reduces concern that the hero and heroine won't come through successfully. Maybe the routine prose and the frequent self-congratulatory footnotes slow the story down. Fans of Regency romances and contra-historical fantasies should enjoy it anyway; other readers probably will appreciate the authors' ingenuity but feel disappointed that all the swashbuckling spies and magical intrigue add up to so little. (Apr. 30)Forecast: Fans of SF and Fantasy Grand Master Norton may suspect that coauthor Edghill (the pseudonym of Eluki Bes Shahar) wrote the bulk of the book which could undercut sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 347 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312864280
• ISBN-13: 978-0312864286
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,277,356 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant alternate history fantasy, February 18, 2001

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Duchess Sarah crossed the dimensional barrier from our world (nineteenth century England) to another realm. Though similarities abound such as Napoleon wanting to rule the globe, major differences exist as the Stuarts still rule and magic is an acceptable force. While Britain honors the Ancient Ones and tries to keep the war on the mundane plane, the megalomaniac French emperor employs the Marquis de Sade to use his arcane talents to insure his success.

De Sade journeys to Nouvelle Orleans to ostensibly serve as the French governor of the territory. However, he actually seeks the Holy Grail to insure Napoleon cannot lose on the battlefield regardless of the odds and for diabolical reasons of his own. Counterforces try to prevent this travesty of the ancient relic from being misused. The Dauphin is missing and an angel visits his wife Meriel to say he is fine and she must obtain the Holy Grail before de Sade finds and gives it to his master Satan. Sarah travels to aid her friend Meriel. Sarah's husband, an aristocratic spymaster, follows her with his plan to assassinate de Sade and begin a revolt in Nouvelle Orleans. The action and adventure has just begun.

Andre Norton and Rosemary Edghill have cleverly created a series that cleverly combines intrigue, adventure, magic, and political machinations into a fabulous epic fantasy. The key to this alternate history novel is that the New World seems real even with the influx of paranormal events. The romance between Sarah and her Duke helps the audience understand the characters as both have hardships to overcome in their relationship. LEOPARD IN EXILE is storytelling at its best.

Harriet Klausner

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Wessexes go to the New World, August 16, 2003

By	Chrijeff (Scranton, PA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Leopard In Exile: Carolus Rex, Book II (Mass Market Paperback)

This sequel to The Shadow of Albion (Carolus Rex, Book 1), as I had hoped it would, begins to somewhat flesh out the world where the Stuarts kept the British throne. We learn (to my surprise) that the Tudors (from whom the Stuarts descend) used "dark forces" to sweep the Plantagenets aside, that the French are prone to enslaving and exploiting the native peoples (in our reality, as any historian knows, they had excellent relations with most of the tribes, and it was the Spanish who were heavily into enslavement and tyranny), and that magic seems to be the prerogative of the nobility. We find out how a Canadian tribe (the Cree) happened to have a presence in the wilderness outside Baltimore, and meet the Mandan, who even in our own Universe were something of an enigma (here they speak a debased Latin, practise a blurred copy of the High Mass, and guard a treasure that includes the Holy Grail). Contemporary Americans like Jefferson, Burr, and Andrew Jackson are briefly introduced, and Charles Corday--"Gambit," the French agent who attempted an assassination at a Mooncoign masquerade party in the first book--is reintroduced and becomes a full-blown and pivotal character. Jean Lafitte, the gentleman pirate-slaver of the Louisiana coast, is here too, along with all the major characters from "Albion": Rupert, Earl of Wessex, and his lady, the former Sarah Cunningham, who was plucked magically from our Universe to take the place of her counterpart, the Marchioness of Roxbury; Louis, the Lost Dauphin, and his bride Meriel; Illya Kosciusko, Wessex's charming Polish partner-in-espionage. And the source of Sarah's dreams of "the Beast" is revealed as we learn the true depths of depravity to which the Marquis deSade is willing to sink.

Much of the story occurs in New Albion (the 13 Colonies of our world) and Nouvelle-Orleans (our New Orleans), to which first Sarah (frantically summoned by Meriel after Louis goes missing) and then Rupert travel. The storyline owes something to "The Last of the Mohicans," with characters at cross-purposes, captures and escapes, and the looming threat of torture and sacrifice. True, some of deSade's scenes are not for the tender of stomach, but then anyone who's heard of him knows not to expect a "nice man." Also true, the authors seem a bit confused about their characters' ages: in "Albion" it was established, or at least strongly suggested, that Rupert and Sarah were 32 and 23; now, two years later, it's suggested that *Rupert* is 23! (Proofreader asleep at the switch?) But there's more magic here than in the first book, suggesting that they intend to amplify still further on that aspect of their world when (as I presume they plan to do) they set their noble pair against the "atheist" Napoleon, who is now deprived of his most puissant sorcerer-supporter. The question that arises next is, Have they done enough to keep their world from turning into a copy of ours? And can they, and the Grand Alliance (now including Denmark, since England's Prince Jamie has finally wed its Princess Stephanie), roll Napoleon back from his hoped-for conquest of the world?

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars zzzzz......, July 10, 2002

By	Melusine (www.FantasyLiterature.net) (Columbia, MO United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Leopard In Exile: Carolus Rex, Book II (Mass Market Paperback)

Is it a bad sign that I just finished this book the night before last, and now I'm hard-pressed to remember much of the plot?

This book's predecessor, _Shadow of Albion_, was fun in a light sort of way, with the promise of sequels that would delve deeper into the faery magic at which it hints. I should have gotten my first clue about _Leopard in Exile_ when I looked at the cover art. Thomas Canty's drawings are lovely as always, but this illustration looks like it's supposed to be a rough preliminary sketch, compared to the sublime cover of _Albion_. Even the typefaces are clunkier. But I tried not to judge the book by its cover.

Inside, though, I found little of interest. I had hoped that the characters, who were kind of cardboard in _Albion_, would get fleshed out now that we're getting to know them better. Nope, still cardboard. It's even worse in this one because people are going around moping about how much they love their husband/wife and yet the relationship has not been developed in the story. Why do they love each other? Because the authors say so, I guess. And to add more frustration, the authors seem to be under the impression that a good plot can be obtained simply by continually landing the characters in danger. (It reminds me of a 70s bodice-ripper I read years ago, in which the heroine got raped, then shipwrecked on a tropical island, THEN kidnapped by pirates, THEN trapped in an opium den... You get the idea.) Dropping the characters into one problem after another works pretty well if we KNOW the characters and CARE what happens to them, but since they're still 2-D, the constant action keeps us from learning any more about them. It's just crisis after crisis after crisis, and seldom a conversation. Not to mention, the magic doesn't get explained! Sarah went to the New World to fulfill a promise to the Fair Folk, but then they were absent for the first nine-tenths of the book, then showed up just long enough to give Sarah some vague aid against the villain, then disappeared again, without any explanation.

I don't know if I'll read the third Carolus Rex book. I know both Norton and Edghill are capable of better books than this. Let's hope they remember that.