Citadel

Product Information

According to Alais’s father, the book harbors the secrets of the true Grail, the ring and is inscribed with a labyrinth. It is also the one to identify the guardian of the Grail. Unfortunately, there has to be a great sacrifice to protect this secret from the armies outside the city walls of Carcassonne. I do wish I'd known that Kate Mosse weaves the supernatural in to all her books before I started reading this. If I had, the introduction of the Ghost Army wouldn't have jolted me to a halt. It just seemed so unnecessary and daft as the culmination of its appearance was unsatisfactory and confusing. I imagine this is what it's like for people watching From Dusk Til Dawn who haven't realised there were two directors which is why the film goes oddly vampiric halfway through. Though the elements of fantasy and magic require a firm suspension of disbelief (there is a whiff of Tolkien about the alleged powers of the codex), what capture the reader most powerfully are the horrors of the Nazi threat and the sacrifices necessary to survive and resist, which make Citadel feel the most substantial and mature of the trilogy. The ending was of course tragic but given that I could not empathize with the characters I found that I did not care one way or the other.

It is the second book in the series and involves Leonie Vernier and her brother Anatole. In 1891, they are invited by their widowed aunt to the beautiful town of Rennes-les-Bains in southwest France. Their aunt owns a mountain estate, Domain de la Cade which is famous in the region. In the fourth century a monk, Arinius, has been taxed with saving a document that the Christian leaders have decided is heretical. Like a few others, he disagrees and has accepted the task of taking the Codex to another land and hiding it safely away for a better time. Fabrissa is also mourning from the losses of World War 1. One night, Freddie and Fabrissa share their stories and this is when Freddie knows his role in the life of this remote town.Alas, it’s fair to say that Citadel and I did not hit it off. Ours was a date best described by words like “tepid” and “mediocre”. Citadel likes to talk about itself, and boy, it had certainly had its share of adventure sto relate. But I kept wondering when the real story would start and when I would actually learn something about what kind of book this was. Instead, it kept referencing new people and events in its life. And the worst, by far, was Arinius. Mosse is the queen of historical mystery. She understands more than most historical writers how to weave the past with the present. In fact, she's more than adept at writing two parallel tales with hundreds of years between the two. As the stories unfold, it becomes more evident how Mosse intends to connect the parallel tales. Kate Mosse is an award-winning novelist, playwright, essayist and non-fiction writer, the author of eight novels and short story collections, including the multimillion-selling Languedoc Trilogy, The Burning Chambers Series and number one bestselling Gothic fiction The Winter Ghosts and The Taxidermist’s Daughter. Her books have been translated into thirty-seven languages and published in more than forty countries. The Founder Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, she is the Founder of the global Woman In History campaign. Kate Mosse is an international bestselling author with sales of more than five million copies in 42 languages. Her fiction includes the novels Labyrinth (2005), Sepulchre (2007), The Winter Ghosts (2009), and Citadel (2012), as well as an acclaimed collection of short stories, The Mistletoe Bride & Other Haunting Tales (2013). Kate’s new novel, The Taxidermist’s Daughter is out now. May, 1706. Ana, a young Spanish woman, lives in a small town on the north-west coast of Tenerife which lies in the shadow of a mighty volcano. Legend says the volcano is home to the Devil himself, but for thousands of years it has stood quietly idle, posing no threat.

Overall, I did get enjoyment out of the novel and the character development was done very well. I enjoyed reading about Carcassonne and greatly enjoyed the history involved in the creation of the novel.Constantia Gifford stands alone and doesn’t believe in such superstitions. She is 17 and lives with her father, the taxidermist, in the remains of what was once Gifford’s world famous museum of taxidermy. Lucie stapt eveneens uit en omhelst haar. "Weet je zeker dat je het verder wel red?" "Ja echt. Maak je geen zorgen."- The information published here results from more than ten years personal experience cruising the waterways from north to south and east to west. In Nazi occupied France the Citadel are a group of all-women freedom fighters - part of the Resistance, and determined to outwit both the Germans and the evil French collaborators. Led by 18 year old Sandrine Vidal, her sister and their friends, these woman show courage and daring, never knowing who is watching them or who will betray them to the authorities.

I read the first two books of the trilogy and really wasn't sure where she'd go next. I only knew there would be a lot of Languedoc stuff in it. Really, I have no desire to see France, but I'd love to visit the Languedoc region! A breathtaking tale of daring and sacrifice that makes a triumphant finale to Mosse's Languedoc trilogy. Savannah’s cruises can include an exclusive overnight stay at Château de Pennautier – The Château de Pennautier There is reference in the book of calling on the "army of spirits". Who do the characters in the Resistance believe these spirits to be, if of God, then why are they not a believer in His army? Sam is an ordinary teenager who has built her life through friendship and a special bond with her twin sister through entertainment and schoolwork. The novel revolves around an adopted twin whose sister has died for her real parents.

Languedoc Literati – Kate Mosse

Beautifully designed, it’s the perfect gift book for anyone interested in theatre, film, television. A one-off chance to celebrate the first fifty years of CFT and to look forward to the future. I absolutely love Kate Mosse! I wish she'd write more often, but I suppose her books are SO good because she does such GREAT research into her subject. After the huge success of the first two instalments of her Languedoc trilogy, Kate Mosse's Citadel was always going to sell well. Mosse, who co-founded the Orange prize for fiction in 1996, received an OBE in the recent Queen's birthday honours, which has cemented her reputation as a champion of popular literature. Set in southern France during the second world war, Citadel centres on Sandrine Vidal, a headstrong 18-year-old, and her friends, who belong to a group of female resistance fighters called Citadel.

This is the first time I have written in a review on this blog reference to Scripture, but I do not apologize, it would be wrong of me as a reviewer to not state something in a book I see as incorrect, even if the book is fiction. Het heeft niet teveel personages die ook goed zijn uitgewerkt. Je leeft mee met de hoofdpersonen en je wint je bijvoorbeeld op over verraad. Citadel has a large cast of characters. Several women make up the group of Citadel, and a variety of personality traits are shown. Through the character Sandrine, I saw a transformation in both her personality and story-line. Her traits of stubbornness, conviction, determination, conscience, and bravery, shown in the beginning of the story, unfolds a woman capable of heroism. Kate Mosse grew up in Chichester and attended Chichester High School and New College, Oxford. She graduated in 1981 with a BA in English and spent the next 7 years publishing in London. In 1992, she left publishing and started working on her writing career. In 2001, she began working on the first book of her series, Labyrinth which has sold millions of copies in more than 40 countries. I had not read any other of Kate Mosse's work prior to reading Citadel so I was unsure of what I was getting into. After reading this novel, which I ended up enjoying at the very end, I do not think I will continue to read her novels.Source: Free advanced reader copy from William Morrow, and France Book Tours, in exchange for a review. In her own life, Kate has cared for her father and mother, and for her 90-year-old mother-in-law, Granny Rosie. Through this, she has experienced the joys, challenges and frustrations shared by an invisible army of carers. I never felt invested in the story of Arinius and wife Lupa. I was given a brief introduction to each of them, but never felt an attachment. Kate Mosse got married to Greg, her old school friend. Currently, she lives with her husband and family in Chichester and Carcassonne. Revelation 1:1 announces both the book's title (it is a 'revelation') and its divine author ('Jesus Christ'). The book is an 'unveiling of unseen spiritual forces operating behind the scenes in history and controlling its events and outcome. This disclosure is conveyed in a series of symbolic visions that exhibit the influence of OT prophecies, especially those received by Daniel, Ezekiel, and Zechariah. The book is also 'prophecy' (Rev. 1:3; 22:7), not only as divine prediction of future events but also as divine diagnosis of the present state of affairs."