please suggest something to read

I've been in a sort of reader's block lately-I honestly don't know what to read. What I'm looking for is some really captivating story, with adventure, mystery, good characters, and preferably historical. Something that's reminiscent of 19th century Romanticist literature, such as the Three Musketeers and the Count of Monto Cristo. It doesn't have to have been written long ago, anything written now is fine as well. Something like The Meaning of Night or some Arthurian legends/books.

Thanks in advance!

The first thing that comes to mind is The Scarlet Pimpernel and its sequels. Have you read them yet? The Club Dumas isn't historically based, but it deals a lot with the classics that you mentioned.

read The Club Dumas...The scarlet Pimpernel-I'll try that. It's been on my list, but lately I don't know what exactly I want to read from my list.

I was reading Writer's Journal and they had a section dedicated to some guy named "Junot Diaz," who was supposedly hot shit for one short story collection he put out. I picked it up, read it, and loved it. It's a very short work, so you could finish it in a day or two. And the reason for the article was that his first novel was coming out (and as of typing this it is already on shelves--I'm not sure which but it HAS won an award). I highly suggest picking up his short story collection (titled "Drown), and if you like it, move on to the novel.

A debut novel I read a few weeks back stands out as well. "Sharp Objects," by Gullian Flynn puts Stephen King's cheap horror tricks to shame, as her weird stunts are just down right fucked up. Oh, and the writing is good, too.

Another book that might tickle your fancy (I thought it was ok but everyone else seems to laud it, so you might as well), is "The Thirteen Tale," by...Diane...Diane something. Who knows, the title alone will make it an easy find.

All three are great books, and I recommend them in the order I listed them. Hope you find something out of those three you like.

P.S.--WAIT!

If you haven't read any of the three novels by Alex Garland, do so now, starting with "The Beach," or "The Tesseract." And amazing novelist, it's a shame he's so insecure of his own work or else he might put some more shit out. Anyways, I'm done.