For some, it's a journey into their Huguenot heritage; for others, it's a universal tale of love, sacrifice, and resilience. The characters must separate and go to different fascinating places such as the Indies, Cuba and New York, as well as much of Northern Europe. This question has cropped up a number of times now so, on the occasion of an interesting talk last Monday (July 27) with members of the Book Club of St. The three novels that make up The Huguenot Chronicles trilogy have been collected into a bundle which is available in eBook and audio book here.

The Huguenot Chronicles: Books 1 - Goodreads

Jacob, having managed to escape from the cruel Caribbean pirates, has been asked to join other Huguenot settlers founding New Rochelle outside the burgeoning city of New York. I had no idea it also included stripping them of their political rights, then their property, then imprisonment and potentially execution. In five short pages at the end the author has them settled on a bucolic farm in Ireland and reuniting with their two daughters, badda bing, end of story.If Jeanne and Jacob can’t find a way to evade the soldiers’ clutches, their family will face a fate worse than poverty and imprisonment. Jeanne sees no alternative than to entrust her sister with the care of eleven-year-old Elizabeth, Paul, seven, two-year-old Louise and baby Isabelle, and risk the dangerous journey to Geneva and safety. Through their many tria ls, I was able to really feel and experience the plight of immigrants everywhere and in every era. In my school years, I had read or heard of the Huguenots being expelled from France sometime before the American revolution, but had only a very vague idea of what that entailed.

The Huguenot Chronicles: Books 1-3 - Fantastic Fiction The Huguenot Chronicles: Books 1-3 - Fantastic Fiction

Despite having some Huguenot ancestry I knew virtually nothing about the period known as the 9 years war. Having ancestors who were French Huguenots this was very interesting as to what they could have went through!

My major issue I have is the events taking place, and the attitudes herein, reflect more of the woke-isms of modern day than the late 17th century actually exhibited. Reading this and knowing the lack of reality in our current government it was interesting to compare the possibilities or trump trying many of the same things if he could get away with it. The writing itself is articulate and clever, and very descriptive and left me with the impression that it was written in a time gone by with definite flavorings of Dickensian type text, which I must say was appropriate for the subject matter.

The Huguenot Chronicles, Books 1 - 3: Merchants of Virtue The Huguenot Chronicles, Books 1 - 3: Merchants of Virtue

That said this is a personal opinion and as such, I perhaps prefer to be more invested in my characters than the author could manage for me. Voyage of Malice : From the confines of a harsh Caribbean prison island to the judgmental streets of Geneva, separated by miles and circumstance, can Jeanne and Jacob find their way back to each other? I would recommend this family saga of holding onto your faith and going to a new home to enjoy that freedom. Some military action, quite a few periods of danger and tribulation for this family of staunch French Huguenot Protestants that refuse to deny their faith for the sake of retaining wealth and property, and even possibly their very lives. A little more of this kind of thing, spread around, would have made these people a little more "real", so to speak.The mother is driven into hiding in the home of a lowly weaver, where the high-born but humble woman learns the art of weaving.

The Huguenot Chronicles Trilogy by Paul C R Monk - Waterstones The Huguenot Chronicles Trilogy by Paul C R Monk - Waterstones

This trilogy has some truly good writing in it from both a literary value, but also an adherence to minimum grammatical and editorial rules that many ebooks eschew. This impacts on the pacing which at times feels heavy and ponderous - across the course of the three books it takes an awfully long time for relatively little to happen. It wasn't a story that necessarily grabbed you from the beginning but as it developed you wanted to know more. Louis XIV has brazenly revoked his grandfather Henry IV’s treaty, which had granted Protestants substantial residential and religious rights. A period of time I know about from my Protestant Northern Ireland ancestry, and great to see my birthplace get a mention in later chapters of the 3rd book; however, I had no idea of the perspective of the French Protestants persecution.Will their love, faith, and loyalty be strong enough to help them survive war, persecution and a cruel separation? Having chosen to read Merchants of Virtue (book 1), they had kindly asked if I would join them for a talk by Zoom. Add into that a range of characters that feel too good to be true and a series of highly unlikely co-incidences designed to reunite characters or get them to specific places at a specific time and the whole thing never quite comes together. As a lover of historical fiction and non fiction I’ve reas many books about this time period in French, British and Spanish history. The account of Jeanne and Jacob Delpeche's escape from religious oppression was eye-opening and interesting.