The life of an heiress is in jeopardy and her only hope is to place her trust in the wiles of a middle-aged swordsman with no use for "women's troubles." As the plots of the conspirators converge it will take all the wiles and accumulated wisdom of Martin Marie Rigobert de Garnache to uncover their identity, to save Valerie de La Vauvraye and keep his promise to his Queen. A great swashbuckler with a fun romance plot. Some of the twists of the plot are a bit obvious, but Sabatini makes them work nevertheless. There's enough action to please action fans and enough romance to please romance fans. (Goodreads)
Rafael Sabatini (1875 - 1950) was an Italian/British writer of novels of romance and adventure. At a young age, Rafael was exposed to many languages. By the time he was seventeen, he was the master of five languages. He quickly added a sixth language - English - to his linguistic collection. After a brief stint in the business world, Sabatini went to work as a writer. He wrote short stories in the 1890s, and his first novel came out in 1902. Sabatini was a prolific writer; he produced a new book approximately every year. He consciously chose to write in his adopted language, because, he said, "all the best stories are written in English." In all, he produced thirty one novels, eight short story collections, six nonfiction books, numerous uncollected short stories, and a play. He is best known for his world-wide bestsellers: The Sea Hawk (1915), Scaramouche (1921), Captain Blood (1922) and Bellarion the Fortunate (1926). Other famous works by Sabatini are The Lion's Skin (1911), The Strolling Saint (1913) and The Snare (1917).