El Dorado

Title: El Dorado (sequel to The Scarlet Pimpernel, or one of the sequels)

Author: Baroness Emmuska Orczy  (Her full name is Emma "Emmuska" Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orczi.  No wonder she shortened it!)  

Summary: In revolutionary France, Armand St. Just, a follower of the Scarlet Pimpernel (aka Percy Blakeney, his sister's husband) falls in love with an actress, Mlle. Jeanne Lange, while working for his leader in enemy country.  (Percy, an Englishman against the French Revolution, is famed for rescuing innocents from the blade of Madame Guillotine under the guise of the Scarlet Pimpernel.  However, some in France know his true identity.  Percy's mission at the beginning of the book is to rescue the young Dauphin from a cruel prison in France.)  Jeanne is not a supporter of murdering "aristos" and saves Armand's life by hiding him.  She is arrested, giving Percy a double mission:  rescue the Dauphin and Jeanne.  Armand doesn't trust his leader, supposedly in the madness of his love, and goes back to save Jeanne himself.  The long and short of it is, Percy goes back to save Armand and gets captured himself.  The French starve Percy, trying to make him tell them where he's put the Dauphin.  Finally, after about seventeen days, he seems to give.  He says that he will lead them to the place.  They take Percy's wife Marguerite (also Armand's sister) and Armand as insurance.  Eventually, Percy trades places with one of the Frenchmen in a powerful position in the hierarchy and rescues his wife and brother-in-law.  

Stars: 6

Violence: 7.  Percy was kept on bread and water for seventeen days.  During this time period, he was also not allowed to sleep.  Every time the author talked about him, she mentioned something about a deathly appearance and waxy hands and sunken eyes and . . . well, it was extremely creepy.  

Romance: 7.  This book could partially be classified under "romance."  I didn't read it for the romance, though . . . I liked the mystery of the first book in this series and decided to read the sequel.  Believe me, though, the mystery was better in the first book (The Scarlet Pimpernel).  

Language: 5.  Lots of "demm'd."  There might have been some others.  

Appropriate for: Young adult or adult.  (I read the first book when I was, what, 10?  Oh well.  I get more out of it now that I'm older.)

Other: On Goodreads (yes, I am on Goodreads) the author profile for the Baroness mentioned that she was most famous for The Scarlet Pimpernel.  It also mentioned that she tried to write sequels, but they were not so popular.  I can see why.  The trick Sir Percy used at the end of this book wasn't at all like the one in the previous book.  I was amazed at the end of The Scarlet Pimpernel.  I had this feeling of "Oh.  That's it?" at the end of El Dorado.  I'll admit that the exchange of letters was clever, but I really felt that the Baroness could have come up with something a bit more original for the ending.