Scarlet
In 1793 England and France, vampires represent the aristocracy, but in France, peasant-trampling has led to revolution and the king’s execution. All Eleanor Dalton wants from life is to be valued for something she does well. She has clawed her way up from the lowliest maid’s position in the vampire Baroness’s household, no longer required to open her wrist for her employer’s nightly repast, but she wants to be recognised for her abilities. When the Baroness singles her out to Sir Percy, due to her remarkable likeness to a French noblewoman of their acquaintance, she agrees to participate in rescuing the family from the jaws of the guillotine. Once within Sir Percy’s League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Eleanor is walked, talked, drilled, educated, practiced, sparred with, and costumed into readiness for her planned impersonation. But plans go awry in France, and she finds herself alone, chased through a chateau by a terrifying fanged Marquis, and dunked in the slimy Paris sewers and the Seine.
Scarlet reinvents the classic story of The Scarlet Pimpernel using a clever blend of fantasy and researched history, throwing well-chosen irony into the brew. It’s a high-stakes adventure with an eclectic mix of human and non-human historical and fictional characters and an engagingly palpable feel. Cogman’s version of the vampire is not the traditional fang-sprouting, sun-shy night-stalker we know. These vampires are sophisticated, run their own businesses, have risen to the top echelons of society, and own most of the land and wealth. And it helps that they are dead! Paris is crawling with mobs of baying revolutionaries and the red, white, and blue rosettes flutter ominously from every Citizen and building. This is an intriguing take on the French Revolution, spotlighting a hierarchical about-face which speaks more of self-aggrandisement than self-sacrifice. Cogman’s supernatural twist will give Eleanor a leg-up in the sequel.
