bookcraft's review against another edition
4.0
Monty was a seriously irritating entitled jerk in the beginning, but what kept me reading was a) that there was just enough non-jerkness about him that I could feel a hint of sympathy, and b) it was clear that quite a lot of painful-yet-improving character development was in his immediate future.
Oh, and c) Mackenzi Lee's delightful prose.
I was not at all disappointed. :-)
Oh, and c) Mackenzi Lee's delightful prose.
I was not at all disappointed. :-)
camille_farrar's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
lovebugger's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
bazkrekker111's review against another edition
1.0
Love this book, but I wish that Monty wouldn't look down the shirt of literally every woman he met.
jekisah's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
profmeggonagall's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
booklover_714's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
marta_silva's review against another edition
5.0
Spoiler
This book starts out super light-hearted and fun. Monty is adorably funny and Percy too.Felicity, Monty's sister, and his relationship is so true to siblings' relationship that I'm in love! All it took was 30 pages and I was already in love with the three of them, with the story!
Monty is in love with Percy, who has been his best friend forever, and he is bi (maybe with more inclination to men). Everything about this is very refreshing and nice and amazing. The only thing that is not is Monty's iron hard father, but I think that is to be expected when his son and heir likes to party a little too much and is into boys... But, oh, well, he is staying in the UK while his son is touring the Continent.
Monty and Percy manage to have a night out without Lockwood, their bear-leader, and they are teasing each other and having fun. Then Monty's brain goes on vacation and he kisses Percy. It's beautiful and spirals out of control until Percy asks him if it's just a laugh. Monty's answer and reaction makes me want to beat the crap out him and shake sense into him, all the while hugging precious Percy. Good gracious, my heart swelled and broke in a span of four pages!
Monty, Felicity and Percy go to a ball in Versailles and it's quite irksome in the beginning. Especially with Percy, because he is of colour. But Monty needs his drink and the ambassador won't let him drink, trying to make his acquaintance with important people. But he ends up snapping and storms out, ending up with a woman in a remote room. And Monty is incredibly funny, I laughed a lot in this book.
But after a game of cards, in which he ends up naked, someone interrupts him and he is forced to flee, naked, through the gardens. Monty forgets that women are the ones that take the entire blame and fall in disgrace when they are with a man to whom they are not married, and I feel a little attacked by what he said, how sexist he sounded, but it was like that before and even nowadays that notion has not been completely lost...
On the rushed way to Marseilles, their carriage is attacked. People die and Monty, Felicity and Percy panic but manage to fight and escape their attackers, even if they can't go back in search of the carriage and have to try and find the road. It's a little stressful, these are not the YA fighters I'm used to. The attackers were sent by the Duke, from whom Monty stole. And what seemed like a trinket is actually a puzzle keeping something very important safe.
The three of them are forced to spend the night in the forest and, unable to sleep, Monty starts thinking about why he was expelled from Eton, because of a previous conversation with his sister. He was expelled because there were letters between him and another boy. His father beat the daylights out of him... It was horrible! I want to protect Monty from his monster of a father! He said he wanted to die! And that it was not the first time he had thought that! All because he was taught that wanting a boy is wrong. It's very hard to read parts like this one... Knowing it was true, knowing it still is true...
They reach Marseilles but have nowhere to go and wander the city. In a fair in the port Monty finds one of the men that attacked him, and it turns out to be the Duke of Bourbon himself. As they hide and try to come up with a plan, Percy has a seizure. Monty goes to find the apothecary he ran into earlier and he is willing to help them, letting them stay in his boat as Percy recovers. As it turns out, Percy has epilepsy... And that is the true reason why he is going to Holland, he is going to an asylum. Because people with epilepsy were considered possessed and insane... Monty is worried beyond words about him, from the moment he collapsed until their talk and he can't possibly understand why his best friend has to go to a sanatorium, or how this happened. He feels like he is losing his best friend...
The man who helped Percy knows two women that can help them figure out the box. It turns out that it did not belong, originally, to the Duke of Bourbon, but to a Spanish alchemist. Then the Duke and the King's guards are searching the docks for Monty, Felicity and Percy and they have to quickly hide beneath thick cloths to be able to pretend they are poxed. It works and the guards leave them be. And after all the talk with the ladies, Monty wants to go to Barcelona to give back the box to the rightful owner and try for a cure to Percy's illness. Percy agrees with him and so Felicity falls in line too.
Oh, Monty, you shameless flirt! To be able to withdraw money for their trip, he, Felicity and Percy go to the bank and just stand there for some time. Monty manages to find a man working there that has the same interests as him: other men. And he starts to shamelessly flirt with the poor guy! It's actually quite adorable!
Near Barcelona, Monty and Percy talk. Really talk, like they haven't since the kiss. And it's soft and sweet and it hurts just a little, but they are slowly getting back to the place they were in before the kiss, and that's good.
Monty's conversation with Felicity about feeling and being in love with both men and women and, most especially, Percy is heartbreaking... Thinking it was illegal and wrong and all those wrong concepts that still manage to cling to us until this day, sincerely makes my heart break. And seeing a beloved character feel that, hear it from the sister he loves (even if he doesn't frequently admit it) as she tries to understand her brother... It was a great scene between two characters who have a naturally complicated relationship but also left a bittersweet taste...
I swear that Monty is blind and I'm going to shake him until he understands that Percy is in love with him too. Monty thinks that Percy pushed him off in Paris because he "let slip" that it was more than just casual! Idiot! He pushed you away because you said yes when he asked if it was just a laugh to you! You are the biggest idiot in history, Monty! Gods above, man! That thing in the bookstore, with his foot going up your leg teasingly and then his excuse when he said he thought it was the chair! Christ, Monty! He's giving you all the signs!
But moving forward from that rant. The three of them end up going to the opera with the Robleses siblings and Monty eavesdrops a conversation between them, saying that Dante is going to meet someone there, that he needs to be the one to meet them because his sister no longer can. And it's a weird conversation that left me wondering if it was the Duke or their father. Because something in this story wasn't adding up, the Robleses siblings act very strangely...
Oh, and when they are looking for a clue for the things they know about the box and all that, Percy finds the name of a temple or something similar in Italy that is named after Lazarus's sisters, which are referenced in the Bible that Monty was reading.
Mateu Robles, Helena's and Dante's father, isn't dead. The warden of the prison who talked to Dante told Monty that the man was imprisoned because he was against the Duke of Bourbon.
The heat inside the opera house makes Percy feel poorly and Monty takes him back home, where the two of them start going through the letters sent by the Duke to the Robles. Meanwhile, Felicity and Dante get home and she's trying to seduce him into giving her in the information she wants. Monty, thinking she's in danger and being a good brother, is ready to defend his sister and almost throws Dante a pot of hot tea. It's a rather hilarious moment! But something Felicity tells Monty left me wondering if she's asexual or if she just hasn't found someone that truly tugs at her heart...
And Dante tells them that his father created a panacea but that it came at the cost of his wife's life so he hid her away to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Inside that box is the key to get the cure-all that the Duke wants, so he can rule France, Spain and Poland.
So Monty comes up with a plan: be arrested for thievery so he can talk to Mateu Robles and get the cypher for the Baseggio box and maybe the cure to Percy's illness. But the moment the thief-taker slaps Monty across the face he starts to shut down and desperately tries to get his head back in order so he can carry the mission to the end.
After his talk with Mateu, Monty is so rattled it breaks my heart... He's flinching from people's touch (Mateu then Percy) because his father hit him so hard and for so long and now the guard did too and he needs comfort but doesn't know how to ask for it and it's truly heartbreaking.
Monty opens the box, saves the key in Percy's fiddle case and then Helena is there and they are fighting and she injects him with belladonna. It's kind of scary to read because Monty loses all sense of self and Helena hits him and it makes him think of his father! Percy saves him and when Felicity tries to touch Monty he again recoils and starts ugly crying. And again it's heartbreaking! It's painful to see the deep state of pain he's in!
Felicity is a great sister! She's changing over the course of the story and she shows her concern and care for her brother, which is lovely. And she is a great schemer! She was charming her way into a ship that would be their ride to Venice when the captain saw Percy and refused to have Negroes on his ship. Which was just ridiculous and left me and Felicity both aching to hit him across the face! And so she leads them in and they board as stowaways because that's what you get for being racist, man! At the end of the first part of the trip, Percy and Monty finally admit their feeling for each other!!! And they almost kiss again but a stupid cannon stupidly fired and they are interrupted! Stupid pirates! Couldn't they have waited just two more minutes to go about pirating?
Don't you wish you had been truthful right from the first kiss, Monty? You would have been a lot happier all this time!
The pirates that capture them are actually new to piracy and after a rushed plan from Monty saved them all from the French Navy, they are warmer toward Percy and Monty and Felicity. They even struck a deal: letters of marque in return for safely delivering them to Venice. The crew is actually super nice to them, their captain amazing! The only reason they are new to piracy is because they were all slaves-turned-privateers whose employer left them to hang for piracy after the war with Spain was over.
And, again, a very innocent gesture, done solely for fun because Monty is the one to initiate it, this time with the Captain of the ship they're on, is ruined because his father was a bastard that constantly beat the crap out of Monty and I hate him! But that pirate has a heart of gold and teaches Monty to fight back. It was not great but it was a start.
Shortly after they arrive in Venice, Percy and Monty have another great fight that ends miserably and ends up with Percy walking away and Monty drinking the night away. Scipio, the pirates' captain finds him and is leading him somewhere he can crash and sleep when the Doge's men find them and bring them to the Doge's place so they can be brought before the Duke and Helena. And he threatens Monty's life if the key doesn't find its way to him. So the Duke takes Helena and Monty to the island and the tomb, where Felicity and Percy find them. The Duke keeps a pistol to Monty's back up until the heart is in Helena's hands but in the scuffle that ensues due to Helena destroying the heart in the fire, the Duke shoots Monty in the side of the head. This entire part is tense and stressful and Monty almost dies! He survives only because Scipio rescues them from the Lagoon and Felicity can patch him up, but he ends up without an ear and hearing on one side, as well as burns from the close shot. It's not a perfect ending, but at least they are all alive and well, not too badly injured.
The ending of this book makes all the troubles and all the fights and all the fear worth it! Felicity is asked by Scipio to be his ship's doctor (a woman! And her dream, at least in a way!). And Percy's and Monty's part is adorably cute! And they agree to not go back home.
So this book is an adventure! It's light and heavy and so, so, so very well written! The characters are amazing and the story is beautiful and it touches incredibly relevant subjects to this day! I love it! It's definitely one of the books I'll always come back to, one of my top favourites! And just like my top favourites, I'd give it a universe of stars if I could! It deserves, it's that good even if I don't have the words to express more.
teodora_paslaru's review against another edition
3.0
I don't know what to say about this book, and I'm not sure of my rating either.
On one hand, I can't claim this book was bad. The writing, the words, fit the era described while still appealing for a young, modern reader. There were twists and turns on every page, surprising ways the events went. The characters were complex and deep.
However, I can't claim I liked it. I didn't care what happened to the characters, and I wasn't engaged in reading about them. The main character I even disliked - he is the type that is as bad as someone can be only to be redeemed later (and he was, plenty, but first impression ruined it for me). It might be only that I read this book at a time that wasn't right. Due to other things happening in my life right now, I wasn't open to enjoy this book. Maybe. I don't know.
The story is more an adventure than romance (although the romance is there), and it seems that the two that follow in this series leave the romance out entirely. I'm only saying this so potential readers can decide if they want to pick it up or not. On the whole, I think this book is a good fit for a young adult - because of the adventure element. Maybe I was simply too old for it.
On one hand, I can't claim this book was bad. The writing, the words, fit the era described while still appealing for a young, modern reader. There were twists and turns on every page, surprising ways the events went. The characters were complex and deep.
However, I can't claim I liked it. I didn't care what happened to the characters, and I wasn't engaged in reading about them. The main character I even disliked - he is the type that is as bad as someone can be only to be redeemed later (and he was, plenty, but first impression ruined it for me). It might be only that I read this book at a time that wasn't right. Due to other things happening in my life right now, I wasn't open to enjoy this book. Maybe. I don't know.
The story is more an adventure than romance (although the romance is there), and it seems that the two that follow in this series leave the romance out entirely. I'm only saying this so potential readers can decide if they want to pick it up or not. On the whole, I think this book is a good fit for a young adult - because of the adventure element. Maybe I was simply too old for it.