156 reviews for:

Citadel

Kate Mosse

3.8 AVERAGE

dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
eswee's profile picture

eswee's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 21%

Read too much as a romance instead of a thrilling mystery.
adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

It is a time investment. However tells an important story based around an important part of history.
adventurous emotional hopeful sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Loveable characters: Yes

Thoroughly heartbreaking but such an amazingly captivating novel with fascinating twists. It hurts all the more because you know for a fact that this stuff happened... and it’s so heartbreaking.

dreybal's review

DID NOT FINISH: 7%

Not interested in ww2 historical fiction 

This was a book with two sections, the one I found riveting and the other completely left me cold. I have noticed this style in the author's other books and just don't feel she weaves it together effectively. The supernatural and religious themes seemed shallow compared with the gripping storylines about the activities of the French Resistance. Of course I had heard about them but this story made me feel an emotional empathy and incredible respect for their self sacrificing bravery. If nothing else, reading this book should be a way of remembering them.

Pretty good book. Written to the same standards as the previous two books in the series though you don't necessarily need to have read them to enjoy this one as it works well as a stand alone book.
adventurous dark tense 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

This review is part of a book blog tour hosted by France Book Tours. This review in its entirety was originally posted at caffeinatedlife.net: http://www.caffeinatedlife.net/blog/2014/03/25/review-citadel-giveaway/

Citadel is the final volume in the Languedoc trilogy and was quite the epic to read in that compared to the first two novels in that it really encompasses a lot of different historical and story elements as well as storylines. This novel takes place during World War Two, after the fall of France and the installation of the Vichy regime. We follow Sandrine and Marianne Vidal as their lives are ever-more changed by these developments, leading to their involvement in the Resistance, their struggle to both survive and fight back. The story concerning the Codex was intriguing, especially with the 4th century chapters concerning Arinius, but did fall as a B storyline compared to the Resistance storyline and doesn’t really kick in until the last half of the novel.

The characters were wonderful and it was fantastic to follow them both in their involvement with the Resistance and their own internal struggles and character journeys. Survival, betrayal, love, comradery, desperation all come up in one form or another, affecting the various characters in different ways. Sandrine in particular has quite a character journey, from a young woman who is more or less in the dark about the Resistance and the politics that is changing the world around her to a hardened, determined woman who is prepared to do whatever it takes to protect the people she loves and the lifestyle/society/culture (however you put this) she lives in.

Citadel overall is a riveting conclusion to a rich and wonderful trilogy. The author does a wonderful job in utilising Carcassonne in the story and the missions that the characters are engaged in. The reader also gets a sense of what the Resistance members are faced with, the dangers and the horrors, and the ending of the novel was quite haunting.