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The Red Necklace and The Silver Blade
Enter the boy Yann Margoza, destined to be a hero; Tetu the dwarf, his friend and mentor; Sido, unloved daughter of a foolish Marquis; and Count Kalliovski, Grand Master of a secret society, who has half the aristocracy in thrall to him. Written with Sally Gardner's characteristic vividness and passion, these are two thrilling tales of secrets, murder, revenge and romance, set against the vivid historical background of the French Revolution.
Omnibus edition of Sally Gardner's French Revolution series books 1 and 2.
Omnibus edition of Sally Gardner's French Revolution series books 1 and 2.
704 pages, Paperback
Published August 2, 2012
5 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
About the author
Sally Gardner
116 books631 followersAKA Wray Delaney
Sally Gardner grew up and still lives in London. Being dyslexic, she did not learn to read or write until she was fourteen and had been thrown out of several schools, labeled unteachable, and sent to a school for maladjusted children. Despite this, she gained a degree with highest honors at a leading London art college, followed by a scholarship to a theater school, and then went on to become a very successful costume designer, working on some notable productions.
After the births of twin daughters and a son, she started first to illustrate and then to write picture books and chapter books, usually with fairytale- or otherwise magical subject matter. She has been called 'an idiosyncratic genius' by London’s Sunday Times.
Sally Gardner grew up and still lives in London. Being dyslexic, she did not learn to read or write until she was fourteen and had been thrown out of several schools, labeled unteachable, and sent to a school for maladjusted children. Despite this, she gained a degree with highest honors at a leading London art college, followed by a scholarship to a theater school, and then went on to become a very successful costume designer, working on some notable productions.
After the births of twin daughters and a son, she started first to illustrate and then to write picture books and chapter books, usually with fairytale- or otherwise magical subject matter. She has been called 'an idiosyncratic genius' by London’s Sunday Times.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 30, 2019
The Red Necklace: 5/5
The Silver Blade: 5/5
The Silver Blade: 5/5
May 7, 2022
I read this about 3 years ago but I still remember my thoughts because I feel like it's a perfect example of my most hated trope: insta-love.
This volume is 683 pages long and contains 2 books in 1. It sounds like a lot but the type is quite large and the writing style is simple so I read the whole lot in 2 days, which is actually really fast for me. I thought to read it because I remembered having read "I, Coriander" by the same author in school and thinking it was cute. I also like stories about the French Revolution and heard that this story was inspired by The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I read right after.
The story follows:
1) Yann, a Romani teenager who spends the first book glowing up in a typical rags-to-riches tale and starts saving people from getting guillotined
2) His love interest, Sido, the daughter of a French nobleman
3) Count Kalliovski, the bad guy whose actual intentions I forget but who spent most of the time being creepy in the Paris catacombs and not getting over his dead crushes
I think this was written as YA but pretty much everything about it felt like children's literature. The times when it jumped out the most were when the good guys had anything to do with the bad guys:
- Meeting them in catacombs full of skeletons
- Count Kalliovski's very vampiric obviously-bad-guy appearance
- Count Kalliovski's very scary dog, Balthazar
- The Sisters Macabre (I mean, what even was the point of them other than to look creepy??)
- The "Book of Tears" lol literally just Count Kalliovski's record of who owes him money
And things only got worse when I looked at Yann himself:
- He had literally every possible convenient ability/ superpower: ventriloquism, communicating with animals, telepathy, telekinesis, good looks, proficiency in foreign languages, athleticism - the only thing he couldn't do was fly but he was also a trained acrobat so maybe he could fly after all lol
- His angsty time in the forest in book 2 lol what was that
And the romance was just unacceptable.
- Yann and Sido see each other one time and both fall hopelessly in love
- They are separated for a long time and spend the entire time crying about it
- The number of times Sido gets kidnapped only for Yann to save her - surely there was another way to build trust between them
I did think the narration was generally decent, though. I did feel immersed in the scenes as they unfolded even if they were super dramatic, BUT the dialogue did switch a lot between historical-sounding speech patterns and modern-sounding speech patterns, which sometimes pulled me out of the story.
Overall, I did find Yann quite charming and Sido showed some emotional fortitude whenever she had to be a damsel in distress but it was just not enough to save the story for me :(
This volume is 683 pages long and contains 2 books in 1. It sounds like a lot but the type is quite large and the writing style is simple so I read the whole lot in 2 days, which is actually really fast for me. I thought to read it because I remembered having read "I, Coriander" by the same author in school and thinking it was cute. I also like stories about the French Revolution and heard that this story was inspired by The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I read right after.
The story follows:
1) Yann, a Romani teenager who spends the first book glowing up in a typical rags-to-riches tale and starts saving people from getting guillotined
2) His love interest, Sido, the daughter of a French nobleman
3) Count Kalliovski, the bad guy whose actual intentions I forget but who spent most of the time being creepy in the Paris catacombs and not getting over his dead crushes
I think this was written as YA but pretty much everything about it felt like children's literature. The times when it jumped out the most were when the good guys had anything to do with the bad guys:
- Meeting them in catacombs full of skeletons
- Count Kalliovski's very vampiric obviously-bad-guy appearance
- Count Kalliovski's very scary dog, Balthazar
- The Sisters Macabre (I mean, what even was the point of them other than to look creepy??)
- The "Book of Tears" lol literally just Count Kalliovski's record of who owes him money
And things only got worse when I looked at Yann himself:
- He had literally every possible convenient ability/ superpower: ventriloquism, communicating with animals, telepathy, telekinesis, good looks, proficiency in foreign languages, athleticism - the only thing he couldn't do was fly but he was also a trained acrobat so maybe he could fly after all lol
- His angsty time in the forest in book 2 lol what was that
And the romance was just unacceptable.
- Yann and Sido see each other one time and both fall hopelessly in love
- They are separated for a long time and spend the entire time crying about it
- The number of times Sido gets kidnapped only for Yann to save her - surely there was another way to build trust between them
I did think the narration was generally decent, though. I did feel immersed in the scenes as they unfolded even if they were super dramatic, BUT the dialogue did switch a lot between historical-sounding speech patterns and modern-sounding speech patterns, which sometimes pulled me out of the story.
Overall, I did find Yann quite charming and Sido showed some emotional fortitude whenever she had to be a damsel in distress but it was just not enough to save the story for me :(
July 3, 2019
Neither I, nor my friend who gave me this book, realised that it was actually two books. I’m actually glad that I read them both back to back – TRN felt very much like the opening act of a bigger novel, and TSB provided a satisfactory ending.
The Red Necklace – 4/5
Set in the opening years of the French Revolution, the story follows Sido, unloved daughter of a vain and extravagant Marquis, and Yann, a gypsy boy whose world changes entirely when he and his friends are called upon to perform one night at the Marquis’ chateau. Both are haunted by the enjoyably vile Count Kalliovski.
I very much enjoyed the setting of this story, as I didn’t know a huge amount about the French Revolution before, and the blood, chaos, and horror of it saturates the pages. Sido and Yann are both very enjoyable characters to spend time with, and they have a good supporting cast (although I think TSB benefited from the addition of more theatre troupe members to flesh out their relationships). Count Kalliovski was both enjoyably dislikeable and also genuinely threatening. My one main grumble about this book is that it very much felt, as I said before, like the first half of a story – the narrative ended just as it felt like the adventure was truly starting.
The Silver Necklace – 4/5
Picking up after the events of TRN, TSB follows Yann and Sido in their new situations as they reconcile their lives apart with their love for each other. Yann is now working in Paris to extract French refugees and send them to England, and his side of the story is an excellent swashbuckling adventure. By contrast, Sido has a rather quieter narrative, and we see less of her than we did in TRN.
This being more of a romance, there are of course emotional misunderstandings and moments when characters break each other’s hearts out of feelings of misguided duty. Both are once again stalked by Count Kalliovski, although he has now undergone a transformation into more of a pantomime villain (The Most Evil Man Ever!) and is a bit less interesting as a result sadly. I found the ending a bit emptier than TRN, although I was delighted by the resolution for Balthazar!
The Red Necklace – 4/5
Set in the opening years of the French Revolution, the story follows Sido, unloved daughter of a vain and extravagant Marquis, and Yann, a gypsy boy whose world changes entirely when he and his friends are called upon to perform one night at the Marquis’ chateau. Both are haunted by the enjoyably vile Count Kalliovski.
I very much enjoyed the setting of this story, as I didn’t know a huge amount about the French Revolution before, and the blood, chaos, and horror of it saturates the pages. Sido and Yann are both very enjoyable characters to spend time with, and they have a good supporting cast (although I think TSB benefited from the addition of more theatre troupe members to flesh out their relationships). Count Kalliovski was both enjoyably dislikeable and also genuinely threatening. My one main grumble about this book is that it very much felt, as I said before, like the first half of a story – the narrative ended just as it felt like the adventure was truly starting.
The Silver Necklace – 4/5
Picking up after the events of TRN, TSB follows Yann and Sido in their new situations as they reconcile their lives apart with their love for each other. Yann is now working in Paris to extract French refugees and send them to England, and his side of the story is an excellent swashbuckling adventure. By contrast, Sido has a rather quieter narrative, and we see less of her than we did in TRN.
This being more of a romance, there are of course emotional misunderstandings and moments when characters break each other’s hearts out of feelings of misguided duty. Both are once again stalked by Count Kalliovski, although he has now undergone a transformation into more of a pantomime villain (The Most Evil Man Ever!) and is a bit less interesting as a result sadly. I found the ending a bit emptier than TRN, although I was delighted by the resolution for Balthazar!
December 4, 2016
Today I finished "The Red Necklace" by Sally Gardner which Jenna has wanted me to read for over a year. The French Revolution serves as a backdrop to this story of Yann and Sido, two young people from vastly different backgrounds, one deeply loved, the other despised and hated. Both wanted by the evil Count Kalliovski...
June 13, 2014
it was an interesting book but not to my liking
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September 11, 2024The Red Necklace: 5/5
The Silver Blade: 5/5
The Silver Blade: 5/5
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews