Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation novels have been called "fun [and] fresh" (Kirkus Reviews) and "clever and playful " (Detroit Free Press). Now she introduces readers to a mismatched pair who find passion in the most astonishing of places... Secret agent Augustus Whittlesby has spent a decade undercover in France, posing as an insufferably bad poet. The French surveillance officers cant bear to read his work closely enough to recognize the information drowned in a sea of verbiage. New York-born Emma Morris Delagardie is a thorn in Augustuss side. An old school friend of Napoleons stepdaughter, she came to France with her uncle, eloped with a Frenchman, and has been rattling around the salons of Paris ever since. Now widowed, she entertains herself by holding a weekly salon, and loudly critiquing Augustuss poetry. As Napoleon pursues his plans for the invasion of England, Whittlesby hears of a top-secret device to be demonstrated at a house party. The catch? The only way in is with Emma, who has been asked to write a masque for the weekends entertainment. In this complicated masque within a masque, nothing goes quite as scriptedespecially Augustuss unexpected feelings for Emma.