The Betrayal Of The Blood Lily: A Pink Carnation Novel by Lauren Willig (English

Description: The Betrayal Of The Blood Lily by Lauren Willig The heroines of Willigs bestselling Pink Carnation series have engaged in espionage all over 19th-century Europe. In the sixth stand-alone volume, Miss Penelope Deveraux travels to India, where she finds freedom--and risk--more exciting than she ever imagined. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description A New York Times extended list bestseller in hardcover-the sensational sixth book in the national bestselling Pink Carnation series.Whisked away to nineteenth-century India, Penelope Deveraux plunges into the court intrigues of the Nizam of Hyderabad, where no one is quite what they seem. New to this strange and exotic country- where a dangerous spy called the Marigold leaves venomous cobras as his calling card-she can trust only one man- Captain Alex Reid.With danger looming from local warlords, treacherous court officials, and French spies, Alex and Penelope may be all that stand in the way of a plot designed to rock the very foundations of the British Empire...Watch a VideoA New York Times extended list bestseller in hardcover-the sensational sixth book in the national bestselling Pink Carnation series.Whisked away to nineteenth-century India, Penelope Deveraux plunges into the court intrigues of the Nizam of Hyderabad, where no one is quite what they seem. New to this strange and exotic country- where a dangerous spy called the Marigold leaves venomous cobras as his calling card-she can trust only one man- Captain Alex Reid.With danger looming from local warlords, treacherous court officials, and French spies, Alex and Penelope may be all that stand in the way of a plot designed to rock the very foundations of the British Empire...Watch a Video Author Biography Lauren Willig is a law student and Ph.D. candidate in history at Harvard University. She is the author of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation. Promotional Lauren Willigs Pink Carnation novels are great fun (The Boston Globe) and grandly entertaining (Publishers Weekly). Now she whisks readers away to nineteenth-century India - home to romance, intrigue, and a spy know only as the Marigold . . . Promotional "Headline" Lauren Willigs Pink Carnation novels are great fun ( The Boston Globe ) and grandly entertaining ( Publishers Weekly ). Now she whisks readers away to nineteenth-century India - home to romance, intrigue, and a spy know only as the Marigold . . . Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide INTRODUCTION Attention: Some plot spoilers in this guide. The heroines of Lauren Willigs bestselling Pink Carnation series have engaged in espionage all over nineteenth-century Europe. In the sixth stand-alone volume, our fair English heroine travels to India, where she finds freedom-and risk-more exciting than she ever imagined. Everyone warned Miss Penelope Deveraux that her unruly behavior would land her in disgrace someday. She never imagined shes be whisked off to India to give the scandal of her hasty marriage time to die down. AS Lady Frederick Staines, Penelope plunges into the treacherous waters of the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad, where no one is quite what they seem-even her husband. In a strange country, where elaborate court dress masks even more elaborate intrigues and a dangerous spy called the Marigold leaves venomous cobras as his calling card, there is only one person Penelope can trust... Captain Alex Reid has better things to do than play nursemaid to a pair of aristocrats. Or so he thinks-until Lady Frederick Staines out- shoots, out-rides, and out-swims every man in the camp. She also has an uncanny ability to draw out the deadly plans of the Marigold and put herself in harms way. With danger looming from local warlords, treacherous court officials, and French spies, Alex realizes that an alliance with Lady Staines just might be the only thing standing in the way of a plot designed to rock the very foundations of the British Empire... ABOUT LAUREN WILLIG Lauren Willig is a law student and Ph.D. candidate in history at Harvard University. She is the author of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation . DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Lauren Willig employs nineteenth-century India and modern-day London as the settings for The Betrayal of the Blood Lily . If you had to choose two different places or eras in which to set this book, which would they be? What did you think of Penelope when she was first introduced? Did your opinion of her change as the novel progressed? "She hated that name. It was like a shackle around her neck, engraved with the name of her master" [page 53]. Talk about Penelopes resistance to conventions such as manners, marriage, and mores. Why did she buck authority so much? Why do you think she was attracted to Alex, who appeared to be the personification of tradition and honor? Which figures in the nineteenth-century story line most resemble some of the modern-day characters, such as Eloise, Colin, or Serena? Willig created Eloise as a first-person protagonist, but chose to tell Penelopes story indirectly, through a third-person narrator. As a reader, do you prefer being "in the head" of a character, or would you rather experience their stories through the filter of an outside party? Would the novel have been different if Eloise and Penelopes perspectives were swapped? Captain Alex Reid first appears as a mysterious figure. Initially, did you have any clues to what he might have been hiding? What did you think of him as his secrets were revealed? The portion of The Betrayal of the Blood Lily devoted to Penelope is longer than Eloises part. Did you want to read more about Eloise, and/or less about Penelope? Or did you find the balance between the two story lines to be satisfactory? "When had it become about making Captain Reid jealous?" [page 207]. Answer this question yourself: What was Penelopes motivation here? Why did she feel compelled to stoke Alexs protectiveness? Once the identity of the Marigold was revealed, were you shocked or surprised? What were some hints that might have pointed to who the Marigold really was? Given his principled nature, was it surprising that Alex worked to construct the cover-up described in Chapter Thirty-One? Why did he work so hard to shield his brother from scrutiny? Prior to reading The Betrayal of the Blood Lily , what did you know about India in the nineteenth century, and Britains interests in the country? Eloise and Colin, Alex and Penelope: Discuss some of the couples in The Betrayal of the Blood Lily . What did you think of them? Which were the more unlikely pairs? In its praise for the Pink Carnation series, USA Today has said that " Pride and Prejudice lives on." Do you agree with this characterization? Can you think of other authors or series to compare to Lauren Willig and her Pink Carnation books? Excerpt from Book Chapter One There were times when Lady Frederick Staines, nee Miss Penelope Deveraux, deeply regretted her lack of a portable rack and thumbscrews. Now was one of them. Rain drummed against the roof of the carriage like a set of impatient fingers. Penelope knew just how it felt. "You spoke to Lord Wellesley, didnt you?" she asked her husband, as though her husbands interview with the Governor General of India were one of complete indifference to her and nothing at all to do with the way she was expected to spend the next year of her life. Freddy shrugged. Penelope was learning to hate that shrug. It was a shrug amply indicative of her place in the world, somewhere just about on a level with a sofa cushion, convenient to lean against but unworthy of conversational effort. That hadnt been the case eight months ago. Eight months ago they hadnt been married. Eight months ago Freddy had still been trying to get her out of the ballroom into an alcove, a balcony, a bedroom, whichever enclosed space could best suit the purpose of seduction. It was a fitting enough commentary on the rakes progress, from silver-tongued seducer to indifferent spouse in the space of less than a year. Not that Freddy had ever been all that silver-tongued. Nor, to be fair, had he done all the seducing. How was she to have known that a bit of canoodling would land them both in India? Outside, rain pounded against the roof of the carriage, not the gentle tippety tap of an English drizzle, but the full-out deluge of an Oriental monsoon. They had sailed up the Hooghly into Calcutta that morning after five endless months on a creaking, pitching vessel, replacing water beneath them with water all around them, rain crashing against the esplanade, grinding the carefully planted English flowers that lined the sides into the muck, all but obscuring the conveyance that had been sent for them by the Governor General himself, with its attendant clutter of soaked and chattering servants, proffering umbrellas, squabbling over luggage, pulling and propelling them into a very large, very heavy carriage. If she had thought about it at all, Penelope would have expected Calcutta to be sunny. But then, she hadnt given it much thought, not any of it. It had all happened too quickly for thought, ruined in January, married in February, on a boat to the tropics by March. The future had seemed unimportant compared to the exigencies of the present. Penelope had been too busy brazening it out to wonder about little things like where they were to go and how they were to live. India was away and that was enough. Away from her mothers shrill reproaches ( If you had to get yourself compromised, couldnt you at least have picked an older son? ); Charlottes wide-eyed concern; Henriettas clumsy attempts to get her to talk about it , as though talking would make the least bit of difference to the reality of it all. Ruined was ruined was ruined, so what was the point of compounding it by discussing it? There was even, if she was being honest, a certain grim pleasure to it, to having put paid to her mothers matrimonial scheming and poked a finger in the eye of every carping old matron who had ever called her fast. Ha! Let them see how fast she could be. All things considered, she had got out of it rather lightly. Freddy might be selfish, but he was seldom cruel. He didnt have crossed eyes or a hunchback (unlike that earl her mother had been throwing at her). He wasnt violent in his cups, he might be a dreadful cardplayer but he had more than enough blunt to cover his losses, and he possessed a reasonable proficiency in those amorous activities that had propelled them into matrimony. Freddy was, however, still sulky about having been roped into wedlock. It wasnt the being married he seemed to mind--as he had said, with a shrug, when he tossed her a betrothal ring, one had to get married sooner or later and it might as well be to a stunner--as the loss of face among his cronies at being forced into it. He tended to forget his displeasure in the bedroom, but it surfaced in a dozen other minor ways. Including deliberately failing to tell her anything at all about his interview with Lord Wellesley. "Well?" demanded Penelope. "Where are we to go?" Freddy engaged in a lengthy readjustment of his neck cloth. Even with his high shirt points beginning to droop in the heat and his face flushed with the Governor Generals best Madeira, he was still a strapping specimen of aristocratic pulchritude, the product of generations of breeding, polishing, and grooming from the burnished dark blond of his hair to the perfectly honed contours of his face. Penelope could picture him pinned up in a naturalists cupboard, a perfect example of Homo aristocraticus . "Hyderabad," he said at last. "Hyderawhere?" It sounded like a sneeze. "Hyderabad," repeated Freddy, in that upper-class drawl that turned boredom into a form of art. "Its in the Deccan." That might have helped had she had the slightest notion of where--or what--the Deccan was. In retrospect, it might have been wiser to have spent some time aboard ship learning about the country that was to be her home for the next year, rather than poking about in the rigging and flirting with the decidedly middle-aged Mr. Buntington in the hope of readjusting Freddys attention from the card table. The upshot of it all was that she had learned more than she ever wanted to know about the indigo trade and Freddy had lost five hundred pounds by the time they reached the Cape of Good Hope. "And what are we to do there?" she asked, in tones of exaggerated patience. " I ," said Freddy, idly stretching his shoulders within the confines of the tight cut of his coat, "am to be Special Envoy to the Court of Hyderabad." And what of me? Penelope wanted to ask. But she already knew the answer to that. She was to be toted along like so much unwanted baggage, expected to bow to his every whim in atonement for an act that was as much his doing as hers. An ungrateful baggage, her mother had called her, tossing up to her all the benefits that had been showered upon her, the lessons, the dresses, the multitude of golden guineas that had been expended upon her launch into Society. It didnt matter that Penelope would have preferred to have run tame in Norfolk, riding the wildest of her fathers horses and terrifying the local foxes. She was, she had been told, to be grateful for the lessons, the dresses, the Season, just as she was to be grateful that Freddy had condescended to marry her, even if she knew that his acquiescence had been bought and bullied out of him by the considerable wealth and influence of the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale. The thought of the Dowager brought a pinched feeling to Penelopes chest, as though her corset strings were tied too tight. Penelope elbowed it aside. There was no point in being homesick for the Dowager or Lady Uppington or Henrietta or Charlotte. They would all have forgotten about her within the month. Oh, they would write, letters that would be six months out of date by the time they arrived, but they had their own families, their own concerns, of which Penelope was, at best, on the very periphery. That left only Freddy. "What, no residency of your own?" goaded Penelope. "Only a little envoy-ship?" That got his attention. Freddys ego, Penelope had learned after their abrupt engagement, was a remarkably tender thing, sublimely susceptible to poking. Freddy looked down his nose at her. It might not be quite a Norman nose, but Penelope was sure it was at least Plantagenet. "Wellesley had a special assignment for me, one only I could accomplish." "Bon vivant?" suggested Penelope sweetly. "Or official loser at cards?" Freddy scrubbed a hand through his guinea gold hair. "I had a run of bad luck," he said irritably. "It happens to everyone." "Mmm-hmm," purred Penelope. "To some more frequently than others." "Wellesley needs me in Hyderabad," Freddy said stiffly. "Im to be his eyes and ears." Penelope made a show of playing with the edge of her fan. "Hasnt he a set of his own?" "Intelligence," Freddy corrected. "Im to gather intelligence for him." Penelope broke into laughter at the absurdity of Freddy playing spy in a native palace. He would stand out like a Norman knight in Saladins court. "A fine pair of ears youll make when you cant even speak the language. Unless the inhabitants choose to express themselves in mime." "The inhabitants?" Freddy wrinkled his brow. "Oh, you mean the natives. Wouldnt bother with them. Its James Kirkpatrick the Governor General wants me to keep an eye on. The Resident. Wellesley thinks hes gone soft. Too much time in India, you know." "I should think that would be an asset in governing the place." Freddy regarded her with all the superiority of his nine months stint in a cavalry unit in Seringapatam. From what she had heard, he had spent far more time in the officers mess than the countryside. "Hardly. They go batty with the heat and start reading Persian poetry and wearing native dress. Wellesley says theres even a chance that Kirkpatricks turned Mohammedean. Its a disgrace." "I think I should enjoy native dress," said Penelope, lounging sideways against the carriage seat, like a perpendicular Mme. Recamier. The thin muslin of her dress shifted with her as she moved, molded to her limbs by the damp. "It should allow one more...freedom." "Well, Ill be damned before I go about in a dress," declared Freddy, but he was looking at her, genuinely looking at her for the first time since he had rolled out of bed that Details ISBN0451232054 Author Lauren Willig Short Title BETRAYAL OF THE BLOOD LILY Publisher New American Library Language English ISBN-10 0451232054 ISBN-13 9780451232052 Media Book Format Paperback Audience Age 18-17 DEWEY FIC Series Pink Carnation Novels Residence Cambridge, MA, US Year 2011 Imprint New American Library Subtitle A Pink Carnation Novel Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States Edition 6th Series Number 6 US Release Date 2011-01-04 UK Release Date 2011-01-04 Publication Date 2011-01-04 Pages 500 Audience General NZ Release Date 2011-04-20 AU Release Date 2011-04-20 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:159834988;

Price: 41.46 AUD

Location: Melbourne

End Time: 2025-01-28T19:21:56.000Z

Shipping Cost: 9.35 AUD