REVIEW: Chasing the Rebel by Tyler Flynn

Publisher:    Carina Press (June 2, 2014)

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BLURB:    France, 1791

Marcus, Lord Rothbury, is on the run. Part of a foiled plot to help King Louis and Queen Marie Antoinette escape to Switzerland, he’s searching for the jewels the rebels stole from the queen—jewels that, when sold in England, will buy the monarchs’ freedom and restore the aristocratic order Marcus holds dear.

Pamphleteer James Lockhart publicly condemns the monarchy and has his own plans for the jewels—selling them to help the Parisian poor. But when the two are thrown together against a common adversary, Marcus finds himself increasingly attracted to the impetuous American.

As they hunt for the jewels, Marcus begins to suspect his companion isn’t all he seems. Secretive and changeable, James could be playing a double game, and Marcus can’t be sure who James is fighting against—the enemy, or the man who’s fallen in love with him.

Review written by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

This story probably takes about two-to-three weeks from start to finish. You learn the way that Marcus, the British royalist and supporter of France’s king and queen, has spent the night in Paris with James, an American pamphleteer who supports the French Revolution. They run into each other as Marcus is heading for the coast to escape to England, intending in the meantime to find the man that he knows stole the Queen’s jewels. In the meantime James is looking for them too, convinced he could feed all the poor in Paris with the proceeds. He disapproves of Marcus’s intention to use the jewels of the money driven from them to ransom the king and queen of France. The relationship between the two is both adversarial and romantic. They bicker continuously, with James often coming to the rescue of Marcus, thoroughly confusing the man. Who will find the jewels, and will these two wind up together will keep you confused and doubting until the end.

There are two types of rebels that I personally like, the Confederate rebel in the United States of the Civil War, and the Irish rebel of pretty much any time after the English took over. I was surprised when this book turned out to be about an entirely different kind of rebel.