The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: pink carnation, interrogation chamber, mummy case, Miss Gwen, Lord Richard, Lady Uppington (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The French eventually unmasked the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian, famed spies in the Napoleonic wars, but as Harvard graduate student Eloise Kelly discovers at the start of this breezy historical romance, the identity of the Pink Carnation remains a mystery. Working in London on her history dissertation, Eloise gets access to a trunk of papers and documents from the early 19th century. She dives into this treasure trove, and suddenly the reader is plunged into a novel within a novel, told from the viewpoint of Amy Balcourt. 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, a Harvard graduate student herself, does a good job painting a picture of the tumultuous era. She also makes the sparks fly between Amy and the Purple Gentian, a dashing English nobleman in charge of Egyptian antiquities for Bonaparte. 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. More critically, Eloise's appearances come to seem like awkward intrusions into Amy's - and the Pink Carnation's - more intriguing story.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Willig's imaginative debut is the story of Eloise Kelly, who is trying to uncover the identity of the Pink Carnation, a British spy a la the Scarlet Pimpernel who infiltrated Napoleonic France, for her Ph.D. dissertation. But it is also the story of Amy Balcourt, a young woman of French descent raised in England, whom Eloise learns about when she gains access to the papers kept by Arabella Selwick-Alderly, the descendant of another dashing spy, the Purple Gentian. Amy sets off to join her brother, Edouard, in France, with the hope of joining the league of the Purple Gentian. On her journey over she meets Lord Richard Selwick, the Purple Gentian himself, and though sparks fly between the two, he feels he can't reveal his secret identity to her. Eloise is engrossed in Amy's story, even as Arabella's infuriating but handsome nephew, Colin Selwick, tries to bar her access to the papers. Readers should expect more of the swashbuckling past than the scholarly present, but Willig's story is a decidedly delightful romp. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult (February 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525948600
• ISBN-13: 978-0525948605
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (140 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #91,628 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 1 in The Pink Carnation Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not perfect, but fun!, November 10, 2006

By	Lora Singleton "book addict" (SC, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (Paperback)

I enjoyed this book, and I'm a bit surprised by all the really bad reviews. It may not be perfect but it is a fun read, which I believe is what the author intended.

DON'T expect Jane Austen or Baroness Orczy or Philippa Gregory. Lauren Willig's "The Secret History of the Pink Carnation" is not deep, destined-to-be-classic, impeccably accurate historical fiction--nor is it intended to be. The author says on her website that she wrote it for fun after passing some tough grad school exams, and her enjoyment of writing it comes across in the book.

Sure, Amy Balcourt isn't quite as prim and proper as your standard young lady of 1803. It would be difficult to feature in a romance novel if she were. Which, though it hurts my intellectual pride to admit it, this essentially is.

It is not, however, I hasten to add, a bodice-ripper Harlequin that's all sex and no substance with no plot, flat characters, and a lot of heaving bosoms. Um, well...there are a few heaving bosoms, but that isn't the *sole* focus of the plot.

On the contrary, the book is well-written and engaging. The plot may be insanely contrived at times, but that's what makes it a comedy! The writing is light and funny, the dialog is witty, the romance is...romantic, the plot is suspenseful and full of funny unexpected turns, and the characters are outstanding.

Rebellious, vivacious Amy Balcourt and dashing, mysterious Lord Richard Selwick are the main characters. Amy is a lively, intelligent young woman with big plans to help the mysterious Purple Gentian save England (though she wouldn't object if he fell in love with her in the process). She is appalled when she meets Richard--an Englishman on Bonaparte's payroll, which in Amy's eyes amounts to nothing short of treason. Richard, of course, has a secret: he *is* Amy's idol, the Purple Gentian--who does *not* welcome the aid (or the romantic distraction) of a meddlesome, saucy (though very attractive--and very determined) accomplice. Hilarity ensues.

Despite the comedy, the characters are sympathetic and realistic. Both have troubled pasts to overcome and ambitious (and often conflicting) dreams. The chemistry of their love/hate relationship is wonderful.

Amy and Richard lead a wonderful cast of memorable, often eccentric--bordering on outrageous--supporting characters. There's Miss Gwen, the prim, straight-laced chaperone with a penchant for prodding people with her parasol--up to and including Bonaparte himself! There's Lord Richard's delightful family--his constantly flirting parents and overeager little sister and his two best friends--quiet well-behaved Geoff (who tends to get forgotten amid Richard's boisterous family) and cheerful, irreverent Miles (who provides a large part of the boisterousness himself). There's Stiles, Richard's butler, an ex-actor who does all of his buttling in character as King Lear and who ends up as a pirate...

The setting in Napoleonic Paris is very well done, and we encounter not only the First Consul and his wife, but an assortment of their contemporaries--Napoleon's promiscuous sister Pauline, his hen-pecked brother-in-law Joachim Murat, and his evil minister of police, Fouché.

"The Pink Carnation" is by no means a deep and meaningful work of historical fiction, nor does it make any claims to be. It is essentially romantic comedy--with all the silliness, crazy plots, and exaggerated characters that entails. These shouldn't be considered as flaws, however--they make the book a joy to read. The humor will have you laughing, the romance will have you sighing, and the suspense will make it impossible to put down.

Don't overlook the "Pink Carnation" series just because it isn't deep and serious historical fiction. Someone on the historical fiction forums called it "light historical fiction," which is a perfect term for it. It is written for entertainment, not education--and in this it certainly succeeds.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A very silly book., June 6, 2005

By	Amy Louise (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

The only surprising thing about this book is that it ever got
published. I was encouraged by the basic premise, but the
plot was just too silly for words.

There was no seamless segue between present and past; instead
the book lurched between one period and the other. The author
was obviously confused herself, because she didn't realise when
her Regency characters should speak and behave differently to
her modern ones. Georgette Heyer is in absolutely no danger of
being knocked from her pedestal as Queen of Regency romances.

And poor Richard Selwick wouldn't have lasted two minutes in the
band of the Scarlet Pimpernel - a more unfocused and ridiculous
spy is hard to imagine. If he hadn't got himself killed on his
first mission with Sir Percy Blakeney, he would have been sent
packing as soon as the band returned to Dover.

As for Amy - was she really twenty, or only twelve? A stupid,
spoilt and childish brat with no charm or accomplishments to
redeem her petulant and pouting behaviour. I was only sorry
that she didn't meet her end at the hands of the dastardly
French police.

I skimmed most of this book, because it really wasn't worth
the effort it took to read slowly.

One star for trying - but Ms Willig shouldn't give up her day
job.

29 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Epitome of Mis-Marketing, October 18, 2006

By	S. Gardner (Central Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

At the time that this book was released, I was working at a bookstore. The bookstore included it in its recommended reading list and that, coupled with positive feedback from other people, was enough to have me picking it up (for all that it took me until a few days ago to actually get around to reading it).

I am now terribly glad that I bought this book at a discount.

I went in to reading the book expecting a tongue-in-cheek take on espionage during the French Revolution. Instead, I got a bodice-ripper.

The book featured perhaps what is the least compelling cast that I've ever read; the heroine is insipid, the hero is ruled by what's in his pants, the supporting cast is transparent at best. The heroine is a flake - perhaps her intended characterization in the spirit of parody, but she steps well over the line between amusing and irritating. The hero is remarkably ineffective as a spy, to the point that it's a wonder that he survived his first attempt. The supporting cast is interchangeable and frequently confused; I still can't keep straight the inner circle of the Purple Gentian, as the friends have little build-up until the climax of the book, barring the squabbling one has with the hero's sister.

The characters are modern - very modern. The women are spunky and dominating to a fault (unless the plot requires otherwise), while the men exist primarily to ogle the ladies' derrieres and angst. With a costume change, the book could very easily be set in the present day.

The espionage in the book is laughable: the hero is sneaking in through windows while masked and caped, only to fall over the heroine and suddenly find himself thoroughly distracted by her heaving bosom and wriggling backside. Napoleon's office is conveniently empty for the heroine to casually riffle it, and the deepest dungeon of the Ministry of Police is easily penetrated by gentry posing as cleaning women. The seduction scenes have more pages than any sort of spying and/or dramatic rescues.

The romance itself is bland at best and irritating at worst. Every character has a deep love-hate relationship, unless they've moved past that to the ooey-gooey love stage. The actual sex scenes are florid and utterly cliché, transposable with virtually any book sold in the Romance section. They're also vaguely disconcerting, as the heroine at most times seems to act like a 12-year-old, a perception that isn't quite dispelled by her more physical interactions with the hero.

The modern plotline interwoven with the main plotline is jarring; they switch back and forth with no real distinction, so you aren't quite certain which you're reading until you get to a name. The modern heroine behaves as though she's the main heroine transported to the present day: ineffectual and falling all over herself with self-thwarted lust. It's terribly difficult to believe that she's a doctoral candidate (written by a doctoral candidate!).

Had this book been marketed as romance and released as a mass-market paperback, I probably wouldn't have been terribly disappointed; it'd make a decent beach book of the bodice-ripper type. Given its marketing and its release as a hardcover and trade paperback, though, I feel almost betrayed; I expected so much more, so having it turn out to be that beach bodice-ripper further soured my perceptions of it. I'd recommend it as a bargain book for a one-time, fluffy reading, but even that seems to be too much. Instead, hit up the local library and pick it up with a stack of romance novels; it'll fit right in, at just the right price.