Chick lit mingles with historical romance in this amusing, suspenseful story-within-a-story, which takes its inspiration from the classic THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL. Eloise Kelly, a Harvard graduate student, is in London researching her dissertation on the exploits of the French Revolution-era English spy, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and his successors, the Purple Gentian and the Pink Carnation--English spies who operated in Napoleonic-era France. While the Scarlet Pimpernel`s and the Purple Gentian`s identity are both well known (Sir Percy Blakeney and Lord Richard Selwick, respectively), no one has yet unmasked the Pink Carnation--that is, until kindly Arabella Selwick-Alderly allows Eloise access to a cache of letters written by Amy Balcourt, daughter of an Englishwoman and a French aristocrat who was killed during the Revolution. Amy, who burns to go to France and join the Purple Gentian in his work, finally gets her chance when her brother Eduoard invites her back to Paris to serve as his hostess in French society. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.