Citadel

Product Information

I gave the book 4 stars instead of 3 because of the fact that for the vast majority of the story, I had a hard time putting it down. This secondary thread is only a minor part of the book, which concentrates on the primary story of the struggles of a group of women Resistance fighters trying to help people escape Nazi-occupied France. Kate is the Co-Founder and Chair of the Board of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction (previously the Orange Prize) and in June 2013, was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to literature. 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. Hij liet zijn blik over het place des Armes glijden naar de cathédrale Saint Michel, die oplichtte in de gouden avondzon.

Really this was a little below 4 - only because some of the characterisation got a little "box-ticking" towards the very end. That said, the climax, which required a supernatural occurrence, was very disappointing and rather anticlimactic. A superb blend of rugged action and haunting mystery based on real-life figures, Citadel is a vivid and richly atmospheric story of a group of heroic women who dared the odds to survive. Not only is this sub plot a distraction from the more credible one concerning the female resistance movement, but it simply does not make sense. I rated it 3 stars because I really did not like that I had to push myself to keep reading at the beginning and some of the elements I found disappointing, as previously noted.There is no sense of discrimination from an industry that is nowadays entirely driven by money rather than literary worth or producing novels that are worthy at least in terms of enjoyment.

The depth of Mosse's descriptions of the plight of the French during the German occupation evoked sympathy and a level of outrage. It is clear that both time strands are set in the same place, the countryside of the Languedoc, the forests, the mountains, its people and language, and the weather, anchors the reader firmly in southern France. If we are referring to the "army of spirits" as God's angels, His angels are ministering spirits sent by Him. Citadel is a deeply satisfying literary adventure, brimming with all the romance, treachery and cliffhangers you would expect from the genre. And who is the true guardian of the ancient secrets that for generations have drawn people to the foothills of the Pyrenean mountains?It was only later that I discovered it lied about its age—it’s actually the third book in a trilogy. Authie is a stereotypical villain who you almost thought might be given an evil chuckle to deliver at any moment. Having read and enjoyed Mosse's Labyrinth, I was interested in taking on the third of the novels that make-up her Languedoc trilogy (I have yet to read the second in the series, Sepulchre). 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. The story of the monk may not have been necessary, but it was interesting to see how Mosse connected it to events occurring more than a thousand years later, with a supernatural aspect that goes beyond the typical wartime story of resistance.