Scarlet

Cogman (the Invisible Libraries series) launches a historical fantasy series with this complex tale of aristocratic vampires, an updated take on the Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel that has Dickensian levels of historical inaccuracy when it comes to the French Revolution. After vampire Lady Sophie, Baroness of Basting, loans housemaid Eleanor Dalton to Sir Percy Blakeney (the alter ego of the aristocrat-rescuing Scarlet Pimpernel) Eleanor becomes a pawn in an ambitious plot to save Marie Antoinette from the guillotine by posing at the former Queen’s body double. Cogman’s attempts at creating a nuanced Revolutionary France are appreciated, but lacking: Eleanor’s dawning class consciousness gets abruptly halted so that Percy’s rescue plot can continue, and the portrayal of every French man (and most French women) as bloodthirsty, dirty, weasely turncoats and torturers rings hollow. These problems undermine both the narrative and the book’s attempts to interrogate its source material; Cogman ends up seeming to agree with Baroness Orczy’s most extreme moments of reactionary conservatism. This supernatural swashbuckler will certainly appeal to royalists, but those with sympathy for the revolution should look elsewhere. Agent: Lucienne Diver, Knight Agency. (May)