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Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | FICTION MOS | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Combining the rugged action of Labyrinth with the haunting mystery of Sepulchre, #1 bestselling author Kate Mosse's eagerly awaited Citadel is a mesmerizing World War II story of daring and courage, in which a group of determined women fighting for the French Resistance risk their lives to save their homeland . . . and protect astonishing secrets buried in time.
France, 1942. In Carcassonne, a colorful historic village nestled deep in the Pyrenees, a group of courageous women are engaged in a lethal battle. Like their ancestors who fought to protect their land from Northern invaders seven hundred years before, these members of the resistance--codenamed Citadel--fight to liberate their home from the Nazis.
But smuggling refugees over the mountains into neutral territory and sabotaging their German occupiers at every opportunity is only part of their mission. These women must also protect an ancient secret that, if discovered by their ruthless enemies, could change the course of history.
A superb blend of rugged action and haunting mystery, Citadel is a vivid and richly atmospheric story of love, faith, heroism, and danger--and a group of extraordinary women who dare the impossible to survive.
Reviews (4)
Kirkus Review
Raiders of the Lost Ark meets The Da Vinci Code, with lashings of Nazis and belles mademoiselles. Yes, it's improbable in the extreme that a medieval codex should figure high on the list of priorities of both the Gestapo and the French Resistance, but, well, the Nazis were an improbable bunch, and they actually had a noted medievalist on their payroll against the odds of turning up the Holy Grail or other mysteries of the ages. Improbability doesn't get in the way of Mosse's (Sepulchre, 2008, etc.) yarn, which, though very long, is full of rousing action and intelligent character development alike. Closing her Languedoc Trilogy, she turns in a tale that begins, gruesomely, with a retaliatory hanging and moves swiftly to a firefight and a grimly delivered piece of partisan justiceand that's within the space of just a few pages. Interwoven in the tale of the doings of a girl gang of Resistance fighters in Vichy, France, code-named Citadel, are spectral events from another time, about which a curious fellow named Audric Baillard seems to know altogether too much. Tough-as-nails Marianne Vidal is one of the fiercest of the fighters; her sister Sandrine joins her as soon as she's old enough to get a driver's license. The sisters are of an ancient clan (" Names are important,' Baillard said brightly"), and both are attuned to the things that go bump in the night. But can both outlast the SS thugs who are tearing around Carcassonne? Mosse slips a millennium and a half and more into the past to introduce an ancient heretical document, the Languedoc being a place notably receptive to heretical ideas, the discovery and mastery of which will allow its holder to conjure up an ancient ghost army ("You want them safely in the earth, don't you, Audric?")not at all a bad thing to have if you're out for world conquest, that. The bad guys are bad, a local collaborationist particularly so; the ghouls are ghastly; the Nazis, determinedly Teutonic; and the filles de France, fetching. Suspend disbelief and enjoy the time travel and genre-blending.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The third installment of Mosse's popular Languedoc trilogy takes place in WWII-era Carcassonne, in the south of France. The action revolves around a group of women who make it their mission to obstruct the Nazi occupiers and smuggle refugees across the Pyrenees into Spain. This band of female Resistance fighters also has a deeper, time-honored duty to protect a potentially explosive codex secreted by a determined monk during the late fourth century. As the stories of the women and monk run parallel, a narrative intersection is inevitable, and Mosse's trademark supernatural twist unfolds as expected in due course. Strong female protagonists, a fascinating historical backdrop, a bittersweet romance, and the integration of mystical elements guarantee a large crossover audience for this thrilling genre-bender.--Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
Although the impulse behind Mosse's historical novel is to celebrate the unheralded women of the French Resistance in World War II, this noble end is poorly served by her cast of stock characters - feisty and tomboyish Sandrine; her beautiful older sister, Marianne; her faithful lover, Raoul; and their friends, fainthearted Lucie and defiant Liesl. More damaging are the novel's multiple melodramatic plot complications - bold train bombings, daring border crossings, brutal torture sessions - described in clichéd language that rises just to the level of these standard-issue actions. (Hearts skip beats, skin crawls with pins and needles, minutes seem endless.) Even the landscape - with its farmhouses smelling of wild thyme and rosemary, its ancient fortified towns, its menacingly shuttered Nazi command posts - is immediately recognizable to anyone who has seen a Hollywood film or watched the History channel. In July 1942, in Carcassonne, a small walled city not far from the Pyrenees, two sisters become members of the Resistance almost by chance. Soon they are leaders of an all-female cell called Citadel. As opponents of the occupying army, they pass secrets and plant bombs, outwitting and evading the Gestapo, but as loyal Frenchwomen they also play their part in a grand plan to restore goodness to the world by preserving and protecting the Codex, a sacred Gnostic text, a document so powerful that "the man who possessed it could be a modern-day Joshua before the walls of Jericho, powerful and invincible." Safely hidden by a devout monk, this ancient scripture has, it is said, the power to call up a ghost army in times of need, and in August 1944 this very army, led by the restless spirits of France's former heroes, duly rises to expel the invaders, wage a final battle for the soul of the Languedoc and return France to the true of heart. In an author's note, Mosse reports that her fiction exists "against a backdrop of real events," although the Codex is "entirely imaginary." Yet the centrality of this mystical invented plot device only diminishes and undermines the real acts of bravery she wishes to celebrate.
Library Journal Review
The final book of Mosse's Languedoc trilogy (Labyrinth and Sepulchre) is set in southern France against the backdrop of World War II. There is a large cast of strong females, including some returning characters as this installment has a parallel time line that overlaps some events from the previous books. Protagonist Sandrine, an orphaned teen living with her older sister, is rescued by resistance fighter Raoul. After Raoul is falsely implicated in a bombing, he and Sandrine must flee the region for their safety. The second story line involves a young monk who is tasked with hiding a regarded magical Codex from the church to preserve for future generations. By the 1940s, the Codex's guardian, Audric Baillard, is also being sought by opposition forces. VERDICT Very detailed and well researched, this dramatic finale is a compelling mix of romance and historical fiction that succeeds as an epic tale of mystery and adventure. Fans of the first two books of the trilogy will be satisfied. Recommended for historical fiction, fantasy fiction, and adventure/thriller enthusiasts. [See Prepub Alert, 9/16/13.]-Carolann Curry, Mercer Univ. Lib., Macon, GA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.