THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL BY BARONESS ORCZY
What my 68-year-old mum, Karen, says: “I always loved high adventure and romance, and this is a swashbuckling book. It’s like A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, but with less moralising.”
You might be more familiar with Batman and Zorro, men who masquerade as silly, shallow playboys while their alter egos save the world. But the first guy to use the himbo disguise was the Scarlet Pimpernel, a British aristocrat named Sir Percy, who convinces everyone (even his clever, cosmopolitan wife) that he’s a superficial, self-obsessed dummy, when he’s actually rescuing French lords and ladies from the revolutionary guillotine. tackles the complexities of living a double life. Plus, it has sword fights, daring rescues and a delightfully confusing love triangle between the public-facing Sir Percy, his wife and his ultra-suave other self.
