The Scarlet Pimpernel is one of my favourite novels, so of course I love to read spin-offs, and I've had Jen Geigle Johnson's gender flip retelling on my Amazon wishlist for AGES. The only snag was the price, which was ridiculously high for a 250 page e-book. The author even stepped in after I complained about the prohibitive cost on Instagram, but she couldn't find a solution, sadly. Anyway, the price finally dropped, and I have never clicked on 'Buy' so fast! But was Scarlet worth the wait?

Overall, I would say yes - with disclaimers! I love the idea of making the 'masked hero' a woman - although I would have gone with the 'Marguerite' character, as a French citizen, rather than making 'Percy' a wealthy English widow. And I was a bit disappointed that the Pimpernel's true identity was explained right from the start - I know that any readers familiar with the original novel will instinctively recognise the character's dual role, but calling the heroine 'Scarlet' and writing the first chapter from her perspective, wasn't half as much fun as Percy's foppish first scene coming straight after one of the Pimpernel's heroic rescues in France.

Scarlet Cavendish is the widow of a marquess, living on her nameless estate somewhere in England, while setting the (slightly anachronistic and definitely colour blind) fashion of the ton and charming the Prince of Wales. She is also the Pimpernel, leading her league of men on daring rescues in France. When she meets the charming and handsome Matteo Durand, the son of a nobleman and childhood friend of Eleonore Duplay, Roberspierre's common-law wife, Scarlet is smitten, instantly taking him home with her so they can sit around canoodling in the garden. Eleonore, who becomes a female Chauvelin, is incensed by this betrayal, but quickly recognises a way to follow Matteo to England and blackmail him into finding the Pimpernel for her. So far, so familiar.

I loved the ingenuity of the gender flip characters, although I'm not sure why Robespierre's wifelet would have the same diplomatic pull in London as a former ambassador and representative of the Republic, but unfortunately the greatest strength of the original Pimpernel novels for me is the characters, and Scarlet and Matteo are woefully lacking compared to Sir Percy and Marguerite. She is good in the role of the Pimpernel, disguising herself as a seamstress to meet F-Rev feminist icons like Claire Lacombe, actress turned revolutionary, while setting out to rescue Marie Antoinette (which even Percy balked at!), but the 'romance' between Scarlet and Matteo felt forced and slowed the story down. And the author seems to shy away from giving either character upper class backgrounds, despite writing Scarlet into the same echelon as Sir Percy - she married into English society, after her parents were killed in some sort of Spanish uprising, while Matteo is the son of a nobleman who allied himself with a carpenter's daughter while supporting the plight of the peasantry. So frustrating! At least the Baroness wrote Marguerite as an actress who stupidly denounced a noble family to get revenge for her brother - she's flawed, that's part of her charm! And why I think making the French half of the pairing into the Pimpernel would have been a more daring reversal.

Matteo is also dumber than a box of hair, blind to his wife's true identity because she's a woman - he finds her 'pimpernel' seal ring, like Marguerite does, but his first thought is 'how sweet that my wife loves flowers, I shall buy her some'. He finally comes to realise that she might in be in league with the Pimpernel, but needs the final connection spelling out for him after the action is over. He crosses paths with her in France, in various disguises, and she even saves his life, but nope, the Pimpernel can only be a man - although why a group of men would take orders from a woman in late eighteenth century England is never explained, so perhaps Matteo's ignorance is the most historically accurate!

The author acknowledges in the afterword that she has followed the original novel in places - complete with a paragraph taken directly from the text, which she bizarrely points out in a footnote - and 'may have been influenced by the film adaptations as well as the musical', but there are a couple of persnickety errors that even the Baroness would have avoided without the benefit of Wikipedia. Most obviously the Bastille, where Robsepierre bizarrely sets up office despite the building being famously torn down long before. I applaud the author's research into the female faces of the Revolution and the decoration of Carlton House, but I couldn't help getting distracted by incorrect use of titles, muddled servants roles and anachronistic dialogue too, which made some of the lighter chapters read like a Wodehousian spoof ('Ta ta, citizens!')

Short version - an interesting reversal of roles, but lacking the elegance and excitement of the original (which I now want to reread!) ( )