Citadel is a deeply satisfying literary adventure, brimming with all the romance, treachery and cliffhangers you would expect from the genre. It is also steeped in a passion for the region, its history and legends, and that magical shadow world where the two meet. . . “

There is reference in the book of calling on the "army of spirits". Who do the characters in the Resistance believe these spirits to be, if of God, then why are they not a believer in His army? Alas, it’s fair to say that Citadel and I did not hit it off. Ours was a date best described by words like “tepid” and “mediocre”. Citadel likes to talk about itself, and boy, it had certainly had its share of adventure sto relate. But I kept wondering when the real story would start and when I would actually learn something about what kind of book this was. Instead, it kept referencing new people and events in its life. And the worst, by far, was Arinius. 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 [provided by the publisher] I felt the parallel story set in the 4th C was rather dull and repetitive, it was there purely to serve the main story and that showed.Het heeft niet teveel personages die ook goed zijn uitgewerkt. Je leeft mee met de hoofdpersonen en je wint je bijvoorbeeld op over verraad. By pledging your support today, you can see your name printed in the book alongside the great names of stage and screen. You’ll have access to Kate’s shed, be able to keep up-to-date with her progress, and get a taste of dramas on and off the stage, scandals and success, the box office triumphs and one or two productions that didn’t quite come off! Citadel has a large cast of characters. Several women make up the group of Citadel, and a variety of personality traits are shown. Through the character Sandrine, I saw a transformation in both her personality and story-line. Her traits of stubbornness, conviction, determination, conscience, and bravery, shown in the beginning of the story, unfolds a woman capable of heroism.

After the huge success of the first two instalments of her Languedoc trilogy, Kate Mosse's Citadel was always going to sell well. Mosse, who co-founded the Orange prize for fiction in 1996, received an OBE in the recent Queen's birthday honours, which has cemented her reputation as a champion of popular literature. Set in southern France during the second world war, Citadel centres on Sandrine Vidal, a headstrong 18-year-old, and her friends, who belong to a group of female resistance fighters called Citadel. But Authié wants Raoul for his own purposes: Raoul is in possession of a map belonging to his former comrade, Antoine, who died under torture at the hands of Authié's henchman without revealing its whereabouts. Beneath his official guise, Authié is a kind of latter-day inquisitor, obsessed with restoring the purity of the Catholic faith; he knows that Antoine corresponded with Otto Rahn, and suspects that before Rahn's death the German passed to Antoine a map revealing the whereabouts of an ancient codex containing a secret so powerful it could change the course of the war. The Ahnenerbe are also pursuing this codex, apparently with Authié's assistance, though to their cost they fail to realise that his motivation for securing it is quite different to theirs.Nazi-occupied France. Sandrine, a spirited and courageous nineteen-year-old, finds herself drawn into a Resistance group in Carcassonne - codenamed 'Citadel' - made up of ordinary women who are prepared to risk everything for what is right. And when she meets Raoul, they discover a shared passion for the cause, for their homeland, and for each other. Een prachtig verhaal wat geschiedenis, bon homme, een codex, een oorlog, en liefdesverhaal met elkaar verweven. Though the elements of fantasy and magic require a firm suspension of disbelief (there is a whiff of Tolkien about the alleged powers of the codex), what capture the reader most powerfully are the horrors of the Nazi threat and the sacrifices necessary to survive and resist, which make Citadel feel the most substantial and mature of the trilogy. But smuggling refugees over the mountains into neutral territory and sabotaging their Nazi occupiers is only part of their mission. These members of the resistance must also protect an ancient secret that, if discovered by the enemy, could change the course of history. In the fourth century a monk, Arinius, has been taxed with saving a document that the Christian leaders have decided is heretical. Like a few others, he disagrees and has accepted the task of taking the Codex to another land and hiding it safely away for a better time.

Arinius is a young monk, who is safe-guarding what he feels is "sacred words". I question, sacred words to whom? I found it odd and yet fascinating, Ariunius is a monk, and the word God and Christian is used in his story, but Sandrine is not a believer in God (this remark is made more than once). So I ask, why is there a book about "sacred words" and Christians, paired with and utilized by an unbelieving French resistance fighter? Citadel is probably best described as a 'time-slip' story, with the main part of the novel set in France during the German occupation in 1942 - 1944. Also featuring is Arinius, a monk living in 342 AD. Arininus is desperately trying to find a hiding place for the forbidden 'Codex', which is said to have the power to raise a 'sleeping army of ghosts'. As in the previous books it's told in 2 time lines the 4th century and 1942-1944 when the Germans occupied the Midi (France) In World War II, another man Audric Baillard is looking for the Codex, trying to keep it out of the hands of the Germans and others who would not honour it. Audric is an old man by now, but still strong and smart and working with the Resistance to save France. Citadel is both the name of a house in a small mountain village, and the name of a Resistance group, a group of women working actively to defeat the Germans. At the centre is a young woman Sandrine and as the book begins we see her becoming aware of what is happening around here and beginning to plan her group. As usual, we have strong women at the centre of the novel, in both time periods, and the men who love and honour those women.I had not read any other of Kate Mosse's work prior to reading Citadel so I was unsure of what I was getting into. After reading this novel, which I ended up enjoying at the very end, I do not think I will continue to read her novels. The 1942 storyline at least presents its share of obstacles for its characters. Sandrine certainly grows and changes as she matures from an unsure, impulsive girl into a clever and courageous woman. Although I found the simplistic way in which Mosse presents their decisions somewhat irritating, I really enjoyed how various characters, like Luce, rationalized their collaboration. In this respect, Citadel allows the reader to sympathize with what the ordinary citizens of these villages and towns must have felt as the Nazi occupation deepened. It’s all well and good to say that one would stand and fight against such an invader in theory. When it’s actually happening, it is a different thing entirely, more pernicious and less overtly easy to throw off.

Set during the Second World, the storyline follows a group of women Resistance fighters who are trying to help people escape the Nazis in France. We meet Sandrine and her network known by the codename Citadel. On the other side the past is the story of a Monk by the same of Arinius who risks his life to find the same text that's used later on to summon everyone who's have ever fallen in the Midi "so others could live"to fight again for the cause, his story is much shorter than the other ones from the previous books but the present time requires so much that it was appropriated to make it this way. Source: Free advanced reader copy from William Morrow, and France Book Tours, in exchange for a review. Because I haven't read Sepulchre, I can't comment on how that book fits into the trilogy, but there are references to the two previous books that lead up to Citadel. The time frame of Citadel is the 1940's while France was in the midst of Nazi occupation. This story is one of bravery as a group of women partake in the French resistance. The characters are well developed and pull the reader into their worlds easily. A breathtaking tale of daring and sacrifice that makes a triumphant finale to Mosse's Languedoc trilogy.

The Arinius storyline just never came together for me. Partly this is because his chapters are comparatively short and infrequent. I question whether their presence actually adds anything to the overall narrative. For the majority of the book, Arinius’ chapters are little more than descriptions of his travels through Gaul. It’s not until the very end that he experiences any sort of conflict, and as such, his story is quite boring. 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. Kate Mosse has been on the periphery of my literary radar for a while now. Hers were books that would show up on recommendation lists based on books I had like. They would appear at my friends’ houses, imposing yet reassuring with their bulk and sleek, simple cover art. I was vaguely aware that she wrote historical fiction, and that was it. Towards the end of the book when it's building to a crescendo I found it odd that there was a change in the emotion of the plot. After the protagonist is tortured, there is repeated reference to how she'll never have children as a result. It's a small point but it was jarringly emotional, a different style to the rest of the book. Also, Lucie's style of calling Sandrine 'kid' was irritating.