The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

I'm a long term reader of romance. I bought this book because of enthusiastic recommendations from people in the romance reading community. Was I ever disappointed.

If you like reading those Elizabeth Peters books where the men always patronise the women, and the hero and heroine spend much of their time arguing with each other while "solving an exciting mystery" and "having and exciting adventure", this is the book (and series) for you. If you don't, it isn't. I read vampire romance! I'm happy to jump on the "suspension of belief" train and be taken all kinds of weird places if the writing is good enough to take me there. Suspension of belief is not helped by the way the ?Purple Gentian has a special cloak and mask he puts on when he goes spying, as you do in espionage; then there is the way Napoleon's office is clearly a meeting place for everyone and their dog to hop in and out of, search for secret documents and snog in.

The 20th century plot is obviously going to drag on for 10 000 books, with the heroine being an idiot, frustrated and powerless. Notwithstanding the fact that she is a Harvard doctoral candidate. I'm not sure why the writer bothered with the 20th century plot - it's extra work for her, and who cares? The mysteries aren't interesting enough - it's clear there will be more stupid letters/documents for the character to discover/read in subsequent books. So? I don't care because the character never became a person for me. None of them did.

If you like strong character driven narratives, be they romance or any other sort of fiction, this is not the book for you. Many reviewers have pointed out that the age of the characters comes across as being about 12, which is fine when they are 12, but not when they are 20 or above. If you need to like the protagonists or at least need to empathise with them to get sucked into a narrative, there is likely to be a problem as well - unless you are 12, in which case you shouldn't be reading this book. Willig might like to consider stripping out the sex scenes and remarking the books to 9 - 13 year olds. She'd make a mint, although perhaps not in France.

I, like other reviewers, was affronted by the trivial and disrespectful way the author treated Napoleon and the French revolution, as if it was all a jolly black and white background for her paper-doll characters to have a lovely romp, being "spies" and giving themselves spiffing flower names. If you have any real positive connection with the French, this is not the book for you. There's also quite a bit of "oh, gosh! A body! rather! A mystery! how jolly!" If you enjoy that sort of thing, this is definitely the book for you.

This series is beloved by many very well-informed romance readers. Clearly they do not have my suspension of belief problems - maybe they like children, and thus were not as unenchanted with everybodys' infantile behaviour in the book. I decided to post this review because I was so affronted and disappointed by this book, clearly written by someone with skill, a broad education and brains. I wish a review like this had been up for me to read before I wasted the $5 and a few hours of my life.

After reading just a little of this book you can stop turning pages because it's obvious what's going to happen next. Boring and predictable; I've read this book before, written much better, but never worse. Nothing new or original here. I've run into these stock characters many times before and that was more than enough. For me this was a waste of time. Has the obligatory sex scenes: yuck. Secret History of the Pink Carnation should not be allowed in same room with books by Austen or Heyer.

I thought based on the author's credentials I would at least be somewhat impressed with her books. I guess after reading Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte etc...I had my standards WAY too high, but I was so blindsided by the pure lack of depth, again, based on the author's credentials Yale, Harvard...a stint in England researching this book I was expecting to be at least mildly impressed. If you are familiar with the character "Patty Simcox" from "Grease", if she wrote a book, I would imagine it would be comparable. The only thing missing here are the hearts above the "i's" and smiley faces for periods....middle school dialogue combined with the intrigue of a fifty year old Nancy Drew book....gah!!! Save yourself!

I read this authors's Ashmore Affair and really liked it so I was most disappointed to discover this book is so boring and predictable that I can't bring myself to finish it. The characters are trite and annoying. Such a disappointment

If you like historical fiction with intrigue and romance in the story line, you will love this series of books!