Buckle your swashes!
First revealed on Roberts’ Patreon, I bought this ebook using Kickstarter some time later. There are perks for giving people money using Patreon. I’m not sure what I was thinking as there were several books in the mix and my To Be Read Pile was totally out of control. But, it seems this was a worthwhile purchase.
Roberts reveals her love of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers with the publication of this book. Here the traditional Musketeers are taken into space and given a face lift. Not just a face lift but also a body transplant and indeed everything else possible. Only one of the Musketeers is male, the others are all female.
Apart from updating various details, this is reasonably true to the story Dumas wrote in 1844, the Musketeers are absolutely true to the crown, they are rebels, they drink to oblivion, fight everyone in sight but are fiercely loyal to each other. There are the twists that we’ve learned to love, such as Athos hiding the fact that he is actually the Comte de la Fère.
I was rather surprised by the adult themes running throughout. I’ve met Roberts and she seems so innocent, but then she pops in the swear words and the sex scenes. I admit to being slightly confronted by this, how much of it is because I was reading this while sitting in a public setting with men either side of me is uncertain. I’m no stranger to adult themes in writing so I’m surprised I was confronted. And this paragraph is your warning.
While you’re thinking about the previous paragraph, I also want to mention some of the LBGTQI themes through this book. Thinking about it I’m actually surprised there’s no trans action in this book. Maybe that’ll come later in the sequel. There is enough of some of the other letters to bring this book into line with modernity.
It is nicely put together. You can tell how much Roberts enjoys the original by Dumas, it comes through at every point possible. I tentatively suggest this is actually a love story to Dumas’ book. But speaking of love stories, I didn’t enjoy the romance scattered throughout, although I suggest you ignore me saying that as that’s certainly to be me not enjoying romance.
Unless you dislike romance as much as I do I truly suggest you buy this book. It is really good, despite the soppy-lovey-dovey stuff.