The Scarlet Pimpernel

Not only was this the name of a long-dead beta fish given to me by a long-dumped boyfriend, but it is also a thrilling classic. I reread this book last weekend and was again enthralled by the romance, intrigue and mystery. Fot those of you in the dark ages, this book is set in the 18th century during the French Revolution and "those demmed Frenchies" are chopping off the heads of the snotty French aristocrats. Lord Percy Blakesney, the biggest fop in England marries Marguerite St. Just, the cleverest woman in Europe. Scandels and secrets between the two keep them apart, but this paragraph shows their true feelings. The best paragraph ever is as follows:

"Had she but turned back then, and looked out once more on to the rose-lit garden, she would have seen that which would have made her own sufferings seem but light and easy to bear, a strong man, overwhelmed with his own passion and his own despair. Pride had given way at last, obstinacy was gone: the will was powerless. he was but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love, and as soon as her light footsteps had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love he kissed one by one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade there, where her tiny had rested last."

Shannon's Grade: A