Tag: Reviews

#BlogTour #BookReview The City of Tears by Kate Mosse @RandomTTours @panmacmillan

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City of Tears BT PosterWelcome to the final stop on the blog tour for The City of Tears by Kate Mosse, which was published in paperback on 20th January 2022. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Pan Macmillan for my digital review copy. Do check out the post by my tour buddy for today, Hayley at The Lotus Readers.

The City of TearsAbout the Book

August 1572: Minou Joubert and her family are in Paris for a Royal Wedding, an alliance between the Catholic Crown and the Huguenot King of Navarre intended to bring peace to France after a decade of religious wars. So too is their oldest enemy, Vidal, still in pursuit of a relic that will change the course of history. But within days of the marriage, thousands will lie dead in the streets and Minou’s beloved family will be scattered to the four winds…

A gripping, breathtaking novel of revenge, persecution and loss, the action sweeps from Paris and Chartres to the city of tears itself, Amsterdam.

Format: Paperback (560 pages)         Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Publication date: 20th January 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find The City of Tears (The Burning Chambers #2) on Goodreads

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My Review

The City of Tears is the follow-up to the best-selling The Burning Chambers and the second book in a planned series following the fortunes of a cast of characters from 1562 to 1862. (The prologue gives a brief glimpse of the final part of the series.) If you’ve not read The Burning Chambers you need not worry because the author includes brief recaps of events in the first book and if, like me, you have limited knowledge of the Wars of Religion that are the backdrop to events in the book, the author’s Historical Note will tell you everything you need to know.

The book blends actual historical events, such as the St. Bartholomew’s Massacre, with the story of Minou and Piet Reydon, and their family. In this turbulent period of history, during which the conflict between Catholics and Protestants over religious doctrine swept across Europe, few families were left unaffected and the Reydon family are no exception.  Forced to flee France, the family become separated and Minou and Piet are left not knowing whether some of their loved ones are alive or dead. The decisions they are forced to make even threaten their previously strong relationship.  Yet, through it all, Minou never gives up hope of a reunion. ‘Even in the worst of times, it was a miracle how the human heart kept beating.’

In addition to wider geopolitical events affecting their lives, Vidal, their implacable enemy from the first book, remains in the picture. Now in a position of power within the Catholic faction, he is totally ruthless and a force to be reckoned with. A ‘malignant and vengeful man’, his actions are fuelled by a lethal combination of a desire for revenge, fanatical religious zeal and a sense of injustice. Although responsible for some unspeakable acts, one has to admit he does make a fantastic villain!

As might be expected from a series that will span three hundred years, the theme of inheritance features strongly, whether that’s by way of physical features, blood ties or ownership of assets and property. Alongside Vidal’s pursuit of relics of religious significance, objects handed down through the generations feature as well, precious memories of those who have gone before. Issues of displacement, the plight of refugees and religious intolerance remain, regrettably, only too familiar.

The historical detail in The City of Tears is evidence of the meticulous research for which the author has become renowned. The book has a great sense of place such that you can easily imagine yourself walking the streets of Paris or Amsterdam, the city of tears of the title. (To find out more about how Kate goes about research for her books you can read my write-up of her appearance at Henley Literary Festival 2021 here.) 

To plagiarise part of my review of The Burning Chambers, if you gave Mary Berry flour, butter, eggs and sugar, you could be absolutely sure she’d create the perfect Victoria sponge cake.  In the same way, in The City of Tears, Kate Mosse skilfully combines all the ingredients necessary for a deliciously satisfying historical fiction novel, including a thrilling and dramatic climax (even if, perhaps appropriately, there is the threat of soggy bottoms).

In three words: Gripping, authentic, dramatic

Try something similar: The Silver Wolf by J. C. Harvey

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Kate MosseAbout the Author

Kate Mosse is a number one international bestselling novelist, playwright and non-fiction writer. The author of eight novels and short story collections – including the multimillion-selling Languedoc Trilogy (Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel) and Gothic fiction The Winter Ghosts and The Taxidermist’s Daughter, which she is adapting for the stage – her books have been translated into thirty-eight languages and published in more than forty countries. She is the Founder Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and a regular interviewer for theatre & fiction events. Kate divides her time between Chichester in West Sussex and Carcassonne in south-west France.

Connect with Kate
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

#WWWWednesday – 9th February 2022

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

The Paris NetworkThe Paris Network by Siobhan Curham (Bookouture)

Paris, 1940: He pressed the tattered book into her hands. ‘You must go to the café and ask at the counter for Pierre Duras. Tell him that I sent you. Tell him you’re there to save the people of France.’

Sliding the coded message in between the crisp pages of the hardback novel, bookstore owner Laurence slips out into the cold night to meet her resistance contact, pulling her woollen beret down further over her face. The silence of the night is suddenly shattered by an Allied plane rushing overhead, its tail aflame, heading down towards the forest. Her every nerve stands on end. She must try to rescue the pilot.

But straying from her mission isn’t part of the plan, and if she is discovered it won’t only be her life at risk…

America, years later: When Jeanne uncovers a dusty old box in her father’s garage, her world as she knows it is turned upside down. She has inherited a bookstore in a tiny French village just outside of Paris from a mysterious woman named Laurence.

Travelling to France to search for answers about the woman her father has kept a secret for years, Jeanne finds the store tucked away in a corner of the cobbled main square. Boarded up, it is in complete disrepair. Inside, she finds a tiny silver pendant hidden beneath the blackened, scorched floorboards.

As Jeanne pieces together Laurence’s incredible story, she discovers a woman whose bravery knew no bounds. But will the truth about who Laurence really is shatter Jeanne’s heart, or change her future?

The Reading PartyThe Reading Party by Fenella Gentleman (Muswell Press) 

It is the 1970s and Oxford’s male institutions are finally opening their doors to women. Sarah Addleshaw – young, spirited and keen to prove her worth – begins term as the first female academic at her college. She is, in fact, its only female ‘Fellow’.

Impulsive love affairs – with people, places and the ideas in her head – beset Sarah throughout her first exhilarating year as a don, but it is the Reading Party that has the most dramatic impact.

Asked to accompany the first mixed group of students on the annual college trip to Cornwall, Sarah finds herself illicitly drawn to the suave American Tyler. Torn between professional integrity and personal feelings, she faces her biggest challenge yet.

Recently finished

The Dust Bowl Orphans by Suzette D. Harrison (Bookouture)

The City of Tears (The Burning Chambers #2) by Kate Mosse (Pan Macmillan)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

The Porcelain DollThe Porcelain Doll by Kristen Loesch (ARC, Allison & Busby) 

‘She was called Kukolka,’ he says. Little doll. It’s an unwelcome reminder of Mum’s porcelain prisoners back in London. Of all the things we could have brought with us from Russia – and we weren’t able to bring very much – she chose them.

Rosie’s only inheritance from her reclusive mother is a book of Russian fairy tales. But there is another story lurking between the lines.

Not so long ago, Rosie lived peacefully in Moscow and her mother told fairy tales at bedtime. But one summer night, all that came abruptly to an end when her father and sister were gunned down. Years later, Rosie is a doctoral student at Oxford, with a fiancé who knows nothing of her former life and an ailing, alcoholic mother lost to a notebook full of eerie, handwritten little stories.

Desperate for answers to the questions that have tormented her, Rosie returns to her homeland and uncovers a devastating family history which spans the 1917 Revolution, the siege of Leningrad, Stalin’s purges and beyond. At the heart of those answers stands a young noblewoman, Tonya, as pretty as a porcelain doll, whose actions reverberate across the century.