
What a mistake it would have been to miss it! After a little "attitude adjustment", I found the flowery language elegant and fascinating and the character development is superb. I have "meant" to read this book for many years, but the length seemed daunting and the language stilted, at least by 21st century terms. Read this book, it is like one of those dreams that you hope will never end. If you are thinking about reading a classic or just want to check out Dumas. It was a joy to listen to John Lee's voice which took me back to Europe and to places I have wandered endlessly, he gives all characters their own identity and makes you forget that its a book and not a dream or fantasy your in the middle of experiencing. The length of the book seems like to much of a commitment, but when I finished it I was sad that it had ended. It is a story that has it all, love, romance, grief, hate, envy and on and on. It is not only a story that transports you instantly back to a very interesting and tumultuous time in European history, but its also a story that is very confined to a specific group of people. But I just can't help myself from expressing what this book did to me.

At first I didn't want to write a review because so many have done that before me.
