It’s Pride and Prejudice meets The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Seventeen-year-old debutante Agnes Wilkins should probably be focusing on preparing herself for marriage, but the call of adventure is just a bit too strong. A good thing, since without her wits (and a little help from an attractive young man), Napoleon just might gain the power to raise an army from the dead and take Britain down once and for all.
Set in history but wildly fictional, Wrapped opens at a fashionable “unwrapping party” hosted by Agnes’ premiere suitor, Lord Showalter, and featuring an Egyptian mummy. The guests are allowed to cut the mummy’s linens and keep whatever treasures they find. An urgent message reveals that there has been a mix-up at the museum, and the mummy must be returned—but not before Agnes conceals her own discovery, an iron jackal’s head. In a matter of minutes, somebody turns up dead, and Agnes begins the adventure of her life.
In the days following, all those who first began unwrapping the mummy fall victim to a serial burglar, and when Agnes seeks help to understand her discovered artifact, the truth she uncovers goes deeper than a mummy’s curse. Suddenly Agnes is racing to expose an international plot, accompanied by Caedmon, a frustrating and handsome young man. But in 1815 London, where all rendezvous require an escort and a young lady’s ultimate achievement is a marrying a wealthy husband, Agnes finds the rest of the world is working against her.
Author Jennifer Bradbury delivers a true tip-of-the-hat to Austen’s pluckiest of heroines with the adventurous Agnes. What young reader doesn’t love to be reminded that sometimes other people should mind their own business? Wrapped keeps readers on their toes with the story of a crafty young woman who finds love both nauseating and romantic, and who finds a brand-new destiny in an irresistible mystery.
