Need a [continued] tag using advanced excerpt

I have an excerpt of my 5 most recent posts on my homepage, and am using the plugin advanced excerpt. This plugin works nice and all, however one big problem I have is I can’t figure out how to add a link at the end that says “… [continued]” which links to the whole post.

Advanced Excerpt has an Ellipsis option which lets you add something at the end, but links do not work. If I try adding something like:

... <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"[continued]</a>

It just shows up as this on my homepage:

\”[continued] and links to http://www.thepresentmind.com/%5C%22%3C?php

I have tried disabling the plugin and just using my homepage code, and adding something like:

<?php the_excerpt(__('Continue Reading This Entry'));?>

But that doesn’t work either.

Any suggestions?