Maliha's Reviews > The Scarlet Pimpernel

My, my, what a wonderful little novel about the eccentricity of the French Revolution, subtle romance, Anglo-French and class politics. Finally, a five star book! I was very pleasantly surprised with this little mystery novel and ecstatic to find out that there is a whole series of the adventures of Sir Percy Blakeny. Sir Percy appears a magniloquent dupe whose only viable attribute is his family fortune while his wife, the gorgeous Marguerite represents the shrewd, keen bourgeois French citoyen. Orczy writes beautifully, without becoming annoyingly wordy, vividly, and with purpose. Peppered with details of the marvellous and increyable fashion of the time, the Baroness presents two sides of the grueling and vicious French Revolution. The extremities of the revolution are put forth quite simply actually, maybe too simply, but adequately for the purposes of the plot nonetheless. Orczy's premise is about two amazing people, in fact the most amazing people in England, who tangle themselves in an inherently wrong political cause, the revolution, coming out as supreme victors in the end. So looking back, it was all very simply laid out but there was enough room between the lines to make you own conclusions.

From the very beginning you start racking your brain to figure out just who the Scarlet Pimpernel is. Lucky for me I had it figured out quite early on, before it became obvious but still, the suspense was gnawing at me throughout. Filled with underlying meaning, not only was her plot entertaining but, taking into account the shortness of the novel, the characters were well-developed and one could easily fall in love with them. I'm a little confused as to which novel comes next in the series but I cannot wait to start reading the next.

The only shortcoming of this novel was that it was barely 250 pages (in the B&N edition)! Orczy makes up for this shortness by writing a whole series but still, I felt that The Scarlet Pimpernel ended much too soon, I can think of so many areas where Orczy could have, and should have, expanded the narrative, giving her readers more sweets to devour.