In The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, Eloise Kelly is an intelligent American woman who departs her home country for the shores of England in an effort to complete her dissertation on an eclectic pair of spies, Scarlet Pimpernel and Purple Gentian. What she uncovered is something historians have not yet come across — the secret history of the Pink Carnation, the most mysterious spy of all, who saved England from an invasion by Napoleon. The modern-day heroine commits to uncovering the mysteries of this individual, but in the process, she gets entangled in the passionate romance at the crux of these world events.