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Just okay, a time-filler of a book where everyone respects their enemies, people can be awful sexist, and those darn foreigners you have to watch out for.
Desmond Ellery is a disgraced English soldier who on a walk one day meets the young Princess Maritza, playing truant from the finishing school she attends. She inspires him by showing her sass and verve, and he decides to go to her kingdom Wallaria and seek fame and fortune there. He gets wrapped up in that countries tumultuous politics, and finds himself in the center of everyone's plots.
It's not bad, but you'll cringe as women wished they were men or have to deal with some serious sexism. The plot starts off well, as Ellery gets probed out by the various factions in the new country, but gets pedestrian when he actually sits down and gets to work. The ending isn't what you'd expect, and it's more they get what they need, and not what they want. Though it's also sexist too, considering one character's entire desire is frustrated. Not bad if you are on an archaic kick, but even for free it's not worth the time spent on it.
In this tale of courtly intrigue, Percy James Brebner's hero is an English expatriot living in an invented land. Through chance, Ellerey (the hero of the tale) meets Princess Maritza while still living in England. She tells him her tale of woe: she has been banished from her kingdom of Wallaria and denied her right to rule. Ellerey, fleeing problems of his own in England, moves to Wallaria and enters the service of the usurper-king. The book's namesake seems to be forgotten and appears not again until close to the end of this story. Meanwhile, Ellerey enters into one mysterious situation after another and a romantic relationship. When the princess does reenter the tale, Ellerey realizes that he has fallen in love with her. The princess, also, has fallen in love with Ellerey. The implausible romance between the two, late in the story, is a sudden turn from the more adventurous bent it had taken. After the love is realized, the book comes to a rather abrupt end.
I'm not sure why I kept trudging through this book. The first half was confusing and slow going. The point of view would also change in the same chapter in the next paragraph adding to my confusion. Once I figured out what was going on (about halfway through) the story started to pick up. You figured out who was on what side. By the end the story had completely made up for its slow and confusing start.