Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Reading Challenges: The Secret History of the Pink Carnation


Title: The Secret History of the Pink Carnation
Author: Lauren Willig

Eloise Kelly leaves the safe haven of Harvard and travels to England in the hopes of finding out the secret identity of the Pink Carnation in order to write her dissertation.  She thinks she has it all figured out when she tracks down Mrs. Selwick-Alderly who says that she has information and agrees to help Eloise.  What Mrs. Selwick-Alderly has, is in fact a trunk full of family papers including the diary of Amy Balcourt dated 1803.  The story of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation goes back and forth between Amy's diary and Eloise's search that lasts only two days before she finds a shocking twist that discounts everything she had previously believed.

I love historical fiction so it was easy to get lost in this book.  While the story is supposedly from the diary of Amy Balcourt, it is not written as actual diary entries.  There is little to learn about Eloise as the majority of the story focuses on Amy and her story, and while you do learn the end of Amy's tale, you never do find out what happens to Eloise or Mrs. Selwick-Alderly's nephew, Colin. I was curious if there was a sequal to the story and found out that there are in fact eleven books in the Pink Carnation series.  

Figures...I read one book on my to be read pile, and added ten more to my list!  The sorrows of a reader...

If you're interested, here is a link to Lauren Willig's site with all of the books listed

Reading Challenges:

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