SOVAY

It’s best not to mess with Sovay Middleton. When this fearless 17-year-old living in 1794 England finds out her fiancé cheated on her, she disguises herself as a rough-and-tumble highwayman and gallops off, determined to humiliate the “lecherous, double-dealing, false-hearted, despicable, craven little villain.” She does, too. The beautiful heroine, still under the guise of “Captain Blaze,” then embarks on a perilous journey to find her missing father and brother, whose allegedly seditious words have marked them as traitors to England’s king. While rampant spies, gunplay, cross-dressing young male prostitutes, stolen kisses, angry mobs and even the gory public execution of Robespierre keep things spicy, Rees pauses to spell out, often rather stiffly, the political motivations of her characters, with relation to issues of class inequality in particular. The villains look like villains, the right people show up on cue and the frissons of love are just plain odd in this fast-paced, unabashedly over-the-top novel, but readers who want some revolution with their romance may be happy to suspend disbelief and enjoy the swashbuckling. (afterword) (Historical fiction. YA)