Henry "Monty" Montague is a flirtatious bisexual alcoholic, recently kicked out of Eton and preparing for his Grand Tour, which will be his last year of partying before submitting to his abusive father's pressure to join the family business. Monty is physically small, has bad impulse control, no responsibilities and unrequited feelings for his best friend, Percy Newton. For the first 100 pages of this book I found Monty to be such an unsympathetic character that I was seriously considering giving up on the book. I decided to give it one more chapter and I am VERY glad I did- on page 102 the carriage in which Percy, Monty, his sister Felicity and their chaperone Mr Lockwood are traveling from Paris to Marseilles is attacked by highwaymen and the whole books takes a welcome turn into fast-paced madcap adventure. Pirates, alchemists, impersonations and plots throw Monty, Percy and Felicity into more danger, and more intimacy, than any of them know how to handle. In the end, very enjoyable.