Chasing the Rebel

The battle of desire versus self-denial is always a winner, and never more so than in Flynn’s frothy French Revolution romp. Repressed English aristocrat Marcus Rothbury is on the trail of Marie Antoinette’s stolen jewels. He reluctantly enters into a partnership with James Lockhart, an American anti-Royalist who recently shared his bed. This delicious queer pastiche of The Scarlet Pimpernel is light on plot and heavy on simmering sexual tension. The twists are predictable and the happy ending is never in question, but Flynn captures Rothbury’s moral dilemma—the question of whether there’s more to life than duty—with a deft touch. Lockhart is more of a cipher, but he’s as appealing to the reader as he is to his sometime lover. What their romance lacks in dramatic potential, it more than makes up for in heated glances and stolen touches. (June)