La historia secreta del Clavel Carmesi (The Secret History of the Pink Carnation) Book

This is what I get for being lulled into a false sense of security by a nice cover and an interesting premise. This book promised to be a historical fiction with a bit of mystery thrown in. Instead, it turned out to be a banal bodice-ripping generically bad Regency romance novel.

I could deal with the fact that the "modern" parts of the book were completely unnecessary. I could even deal with the fact that the way people spoke/acted in the 19th century parts and the modern parts were exactly the same (i.e., wildly anachronistic for the Regency parts). I could even deal with the fact that it was impossible to tell how much modern-day scholar Eloise knew of the story the reader learned, considering many of the details would NOT find their way into the diaries/letters that she was supposedly reading (and why oh why did Willig just not do the 19th century bits in letter/diary form?). I could deal with all these things IF the writing, characters, and plot were any good. Unfortunately, those three things were so horribly done that the previous details I mentioned only added insult to injury.

First of all, the two main heroines (present day Eloise and Regency Amy) were Chaotic Stupid. When the main trait of your characters is Too Stupid To Live you know there is something wrong. The love interest, Lord Richard, besides having a lame secret identity name (the Purple Gentian...yeah, I know) was also dumb beyond belief. And this was the man who apparently outwitted the French Secret Service for years. Either the French Secret Service is even more incompetent than the average villainous mook, or Lord Richard survived on sheer luck.

Why do I hate this book? Let me count the ways: Everyone acts like a 12 year old, and not a particularly bright 12 year old. There is so much stomping, foot stamping and door slamming that I almost wanted to keep count to see how many times Willig managed to fit it in. And these are supposed to be grown adults. And they do dumbass things, like Lord Richard and Amy both ending up in the bad guy's room for secret spy reasons and instead of being quiet and stealthy and getting in and out fast...they make out on the bed and then stand around shouting at each other until the bad guy and his guards surround them. SERIOUSLY, HOW IS LORD RICHARD STILL ALIVE?!?!? Especially given the fact that he mostly spends the book whining, leering at the heroine, not being particularly stealthy, allowing himself to be tailed without ever figuring it out, and having the heroine, her cousin and her governess figure out his true identity in about a week. HOW HAS NO ONE ELSE BEEN ABLE TO FIGURE IT OUT THEN?!?!? Truly, I think in this parallel timeline where the Scarlet Pimpernel was a real person, a dreaded Stupidity Epidemic swept through France and Britain, rendering both the Continent and the Isles thick as concrete.

Amy was perhaps one of the most annoying heroines I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. She is the main culprit of the stomping, juvenile behavior. She actually has an argument with Lord Richard that devolves into "I'm not speaking to you!" "How mature!" "Shut up!" "You just spoke to me!" "That doesn't count!" thing I did with my brothers when I was about 8. Plus, she made a point to get a job tutoring Napoleon's stepdaughter in English so she could have an in with the government...and then the entire subplot was dropped as we never saw the stepdaughter again or heard anything of any tutoring. AND she was one of those heroines who despite being a privileged, sheltered girl has no concern for propriety at all and seems to willfully try to ruin her reputation every opportunity she gets, despite the fact that at the time a ruined reputation was actually A Serious Business that could shame not only her but ALSO her family (including her cousins). I mean, this girl nearly loses her virginity on a BOAT with a poor hired guy ROWING HER AND HER PARAMOUR on the Seine. Sex in public with a witness! Does the girl have no shame? You don't think she'd feel at all awkward by the fact that, you know, someone WAS WATCHING HER? I know it's hard to think logically when you're in the middle of getting hot and heavy with a guy you like, but at the very least it should've given her a moment of pause. But, no, it barely registers. Not to mention the scene where her governess upbraids Napoleon as if he's a naughty child and isn't even thrown in jail for what would've been considered treason. The only person who showed ANY intelligence at all was cousin Jane. Basically she was the only one that ever figured anything out without having it dropped in her lap and she used the common sense that God gave her instead of acting like a spoiled, selfish brat.

You'd think that an author who was getting a PhD in history at Harvard could write a decent historical novel. You'd be wrong. This is the epitome of bad writing, idiotic characters, plot contrivances, and no apparent historical research.