Blood Royal: Or, The Son of Milady
About this audiobook
The latest entry in this acclaimed series of new translations of the Musketeer novels, Blood Royal continues the adventures of the valiant d’Artagnan and his three loyal friends.
The latest translation in Lawrence Ellsworth’s acclaimed new series of Alexandre Dumas’s greatest adventures is Blood Royal, the second half of what Dumas originally published as Twenty Years After. In this volume all the plots and schemes set up in the previous novel come to dramatic fruition in the kind of exciting thrill-ride Dumas is famous for—while at the same time introducing the characters and themes that form the foundation of the rest of the series, leading to its great climax in The Man in the Iron Mask.
In Blood Royal, the Four Musketeers all venture to England on parallel missions to save King Charles I, pursued by the murderous and vengeful Mordaunt, the son of Milady de Winter, the great villain of The Three Musketeers. Despite all his experience, d’Artagnan is repeatedly foiled by the much-younger Mordaunt, who erupts out of the past to embody the strengths of audacity and cunning that were once d’Artagnan’s hallmarks. Mordaunt has corrupted those youthful strengths, and the older d’Artagnan is no match for him until he is able to pull his former team together again. To do this d’Artagnan will have to become a true leader of men, leading not just by example but also by foresight, persuasion, and compromise. Only then can the team of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis be re-formed in all its might to defeat the specter of their past.
Blood Royal is unmatched in Dumas’s oeuvre in its depictions of his most famous and beloved characters, and an unforgettable saga of swordplay, suspense, revenge, and ultimate triumph.
About the author
One of the most famous French writers of the nineteenth century, Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) first achieved success in the literary world as a playwright before turning his hand to writing novels. In two years, from 1844 to 1845, he published two enormous books, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. Both novels have sold millions of copies worldwide.
Lawrence Ellsworth is the pen name of Lawrence Schick. An authority on historical adventure fiction, Ellsworth is the translator of Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, The Red Sphinx, and Blood Royal. He was born in the United States and now lives in Dublin.
John Lee has read more than 100 audiobooks. His work has garnered multiple Earphones Awards and won AudioFile's Best Voice in Fiction & Classics in both 2008 and 2009. Lee narrated the audiobook for A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin, volume four of A Song of Ice and Fire. He has also read for Jack London, John Banville, Charles Dickens, and Barbara Taylor Bradford. In addition, Lee narrates video games, does voice-over work, and writes plays. He is also an accomplished stage actor and has written and co-produced the feature films Breathing Hard and Forfeit. He played Alydon in the 1963–64 Doctor Who serial The Daleks.
