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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
So very close to being perfect! Even though this is a chunky book, it didn’t feel long when reading it. It has a great flow, and I just wanted to keep reading to find out what happened to our characters! I think with the focus on religion this really helped make it readable to those of us who aren’t history nerds but love historical fiction!
Knocking off a quarter of a star because I just found that the last part let it down slightly, with a few things that didn’t make sense, and where all the characters ended up felt a little too neat for my liking.
Would still highly recommend and will definitely continue with the series!
Knocking off a quarter of a star because I just found that the last part let it down slightly, with a few things that didn’t make sense, and where all the characters ended up felt a little too neat for my liking.
Would still highly recommend and will definitely continue with the series!
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
After a really slow start, I ended up enjoying this one by the end.
I had recently read a non-fiction book ([b:Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power|62039165|Young Queens Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power|Leah Redmond Chang|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1670260372l/62039165._SX50_.jpg|97797648] by Leah Redmond Chang) which had some sections covering the Wars of Religion in France and the royalty involved, so reading this just after gave me a greater understanding of the political and religious issues at the time.
As with other books I've read from this author, they are clearly very well researched and written. The history of the places really comes through and adds to the quality of the writing.
The weakest part of this for me was the romance, I know there was a war going on and all, but there was barely a molecule of connection between them so just seemed unbelievable that she would up and leave to follow him then suddenly decide they were in love later on.
I had recently read a non-fiction book ([b:Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power|62039165|Young Queens Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power|Leah Redmond Chang|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1670260372l/62039165._SX50_.jpg|97797648] by Leah Redmond Chang) which had some sections covering the Wars of Religion in France and the royalty involved, so reading this just after gave me a greater understanding of the political and religious issues at the time.
As with other books I've read from this author, they are clearly very well researched and written. The history of the places really comes through and adds to the quality of the writing.
The weakest part of this for me was the romance, I know there was a war going on and all, but there was barely a molecule of connection between them so just seemed unbelievable that she would up and leave to follow him then suddenly decide they were in love later on.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
Me gustó la historia pero hay algunas cosas que todavía no entiendo; una de ellas es que la historia abarca 300 años.
El libro empieza contándonos algo que se desarrolla en 1862 pero al terminar el primer capítulo nos transporta 300 años al pasado, o sea, a 1562. En este año se nos cuenta la historia de una joven de 19 años que viven Carcasona, Francia. Un día, mientras trabaja en la librería de su padre, recibe una carta que dice "ella sabe que estás viva". En este punto ya tenemos dos tramas que se van explicar, la del libro y la de (quiero pensar) la trilogía.
Me gustó que aunque hay cambios de lugar, es decir, ciudades, pueblos, lugares dentro de la ciudad, no se usa de una manera muy excesiva. Lo que se tiene que explicar en ese lugar se explica; no hay cambios innecesarios (en lo que a mí respecta).
Creo que lo único que no me gustó de este libro es que el villano se revela muy tarde, nos presentan las cartas o diario que tiene el sello de León con dos colas, pero no es sino hasta la mitad del libro más o menos que estas cartas toman importancia. De hecho puedo decir que el villano en si es sólo un villano secundario, ya que el principal es quien no esperamos que sea.
Lo que sí me disgustó muchísimo fue la actitud de los católicos hacia los protestantes. La autora hizo muy bien su trabajo porque en realidad logró hacerme que los odiara. Cada escena en la que culpan a los protestantes de las cosas hechas por los católicos, quise poder entrar al libro y por lo menos agarrar a todos a cachetadas. No puedo creer que hayan tenido el pensamiento tan cerrado y quieran convencer a los demás de qué las personas que creen en algo diferente son malas.
Obviamente seguiré leyendo los libros que restan de esta serie porque me interesa saber cómo es que el desarrollo de la historia se va a llevar a cabo a lo largo de 300 años. Obviamente ya no veremos la vida de la personaje principal en este libro pero quiero saber qué potencial tiene la autora para contarnos una historia como esta.
El libro empieza contándonos algo que se desarrolla en 1862 pero al terminar el primer capítulo nos transporta 300 años al pasado, o sea, a 1562. En este año se nos cuenta la historia de una joven de 19 años que viven Carcasona, Francia. Un día, mientras trabaja en la librería de su padre, recibe una carta que dice "ella sabe que estás viva". En este punto ya tenemos dos tramas que se van explicar, la del libro y la de (quiero pensar) la trilogía.
Me gustó que aunque hay cambios de lugar, es decir, ciudades, pueblos, lugares dentro de la ciudad, no se usa de una manera muy excesiva. Lo que se tiene que explicar en ese lugar se explica; no hay cambios innecesarios (en lo que a mí respecta).
Creo que lo único que no me gustó de este libro es que el villano se revela muy tarde, nos presentan las cartas o diario que tiene el sello de León con dos colas, pero no es sino hasta la mitad del libro más o menos que estas cartas toman importancia. De hecho puedo decir que el villano en si es sólo un villano secundario, ya que el principal es quien no esperamos que sea.
Lo que sí me disgustó muchísimo fue la actitud de los católicos hacia los protestantes. La autora hizo muy bien su trabajo porque en realidad logró hacerme que los odiara. Cada escena en la que culpan a los protestantes de las cosas hechas por los católicos, quise poder entrar al libro y por lo menos agarrar a todos a cachetadas. No puedo creer que hayan tenido el pensamiento tan cerrado y quieran convencer a los demás de qué las personas que creen en algo diferente son malas.
Obviamente seguiré leyendo los libros que restan de esta serie porque me interesa saber cómo es que el desarrollo de la historia se va a llevar a cabo a lo largo de 300 años. Obviamente ya no veremos la vida de la personaje principal en este libro pero quiero saber qué potencial tiene la autora para contarnos una historia como esta.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Kate Mosse is a best-selling author so I presume that she knows her audience and tailors her work perfectly to what they want. Her choice of subject - the French wars of religion in which Huguenots fought against Catholics with both sides responsible for terrible massacres - should be rich and fertile ground, full of potential. But Mosse has diluted and dumbed-down her narrative; I suppose she knows that her readers couldn't cope with anything better. Any hint of moral ambiguity has been discarded.
That it is a historical novel is shown by the use of old-fashioned terms such as "break your fast" for breakfast (Ch 2) and "pursuivants" for pursuers (Ch 7) but any true sense of period is completely undermined by giving the goodies modern moral sensibilities. For example, wife-beating (Ch 50) is regarded as normal by the baddie and abhored by the goodie. I'm not saying that wife-beating is at all tolerated and I am sure that in the 1500s there were many people who condemned it but it would have added interest and tension to the story if a goodie had condoned it. Our moral values are developed within the context of society and one of the functions of a historical novel should be to examine our present beliefs from the perspective of past societies or we risk making the assumption that then they were wrong, wrong, wrong and today we are right, right, right and in the future if they look back at us they will be amazed at how right we were. I suspect Mosse knows that her readers would be shocked if she allowed a goodie to say something controversial but it made for a very unsatisfactory novel.
The characters are mostly exactly the same underneath as they are on the surface. The only characters I became interested in (and mostly because they offered a slight element of comedy) were Aimeric the boy and Madame Boussay his aunt, the latter being the only character to show any sort of development. The others were names for stereotypes; the goodies were good and the baddies were bad and no-one had a moral dilemma or changed in character. Even the love affair was love at first sight and enduring through thick and thin. There were repeated missed opportunities to develop the characters and this meant that the narrative tapestry woven was threadbare. They were as wooden as the chess pieces moved around the board and like bishops, knights and castles< Mosse's characters were totally subservient to the dictates of her plot.
In the end it was all about the plot. But even this didn't excite me. It lumbered along like a creaking medieval cart. Okay, a lot happened and there were twists and turns, but there was nothing that was not predictable.
It was, I suppose, a page turner but only because I had lost interest well before the half-way mark and was skim-reading to get to the end as quickly as possible.
That it is a historical novel is shown by the use of old-fashioned terms such as "break your fast" for breakfast (Ch 2) and "pursuivants" for pursuers (Ch 7) but any true sense of period is completely undermined by giving the goodies modern moral sensibilities. For example, wife-beating (Ch 50) is regarded as normal by the baddie and abhored by the goodie. I'm not saying that wife-beating is at all tolerated and I am sure that in the 1500s there were many people who condemned it but it would have added interest and tension to the story if a goodie had condoned it. Our moral values are developed within the context of society and one of the functions of a historical novel should be to examine our present beliefs from the perspective of past societies or we risk making the assumption that then they were wrong, wrong, wrong and today we are right, right, right and in the future if they look back at us they will be amazed at how right we were. I suspect Mosse knows that her readers would be shocked if she allowed a goodie to say something controversial but it made for a very unsatisfactory novel.
The characters are mostly exactly the same underneath as they are on the surface. The only characters I became interested in (and mostly because they offered a slight element of comedy) were Aimeric the boy and Madame Boussay his aunt, the latter being the only character to show any sort of development. The others were names for stereotypes; the goodies were good and the baddies were bad and no-one had a moral dilemma or changed in character. Even the love affair was love at first sight and enduring through thick and thin. There were repeated missed opportunities to develop the characters and this meant that the narrative tapestry woven was threadbare. They were as wooden as the chess pieces moved around the board and like bishops, knights and castles< Mosse's characters were totally subservient to the dictates of her plot.
In the end it was all about the plot. But even this didn't excite me. It lumbered along like a creaking medieval cart. Okay, a lot happened and there were twists and turns, but there was nothing that was not predictable.
It was, I suppose, a page turner but only because I had lost interest well before the half-way mark and was skim-reading to get to the end as quickly as possible.
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No