Bingo 14: Citizen
Elusive is part 2 of a trilogy that re-imagines some things about the French Revolution. It’s definitely fiction, but given the historical context of citizens trying to take back power from the elite which is a theme in the novel in more ways than one, I argue this counts.
A major part of the fiction is the addition of the (former?) maid Eleanor to the Scarlet Pimpernel and his crew, and the addition of vampires (Marie Antoinette might still be around in some form…) and maybe now mages.
This might just be middle of the trilogy syndrome, but it felt like there was a lot more talking about what to do, and not enough doing. Which is odd for a remake of an action-adventure story. Eleanor does have a handful of adventures, including a jailbreak involving a hot air balloon, and an undercover mission to a vampire under-party (party going on at the same time as the human party). We also get another member of Anima’s former people, and there’s definitely a development in how her and Eleanor’s connection develops and affects Eleanor. While I definitely appreciate Bernard, what starts happening with Eleanor seems a little bit cliché in terms of setting her up for the inevitable role she’ll have in the grand finale in book 3.
So, for the actual citizen side, we don’t get to see many of the average French citizenry, although they do appear a lot in the philosophical arguments and discussions, as well as some of the legal points that get brought up. The importance of being from somewhere also comes up, as in being French vs English, but the situation with the vampires is developing in a way that maybe things aren’t so different. We’ll have to see what book 3 does with it all. I do have my hopes for Marie who takes on a more interesting role towards the end with her proposal for working together with a certain group against the ones she might otherwise have been associated with.