Citadel (Languedoc Trilogy, #3)

by Kate Mosse

Carcassonne 1942. A spirited and courageous young woman, Sandrine, finds herself drawn into the world of the Resistance in Carcassonne under German Occupation. Her network - codenamed 'Citadel' - is made up of ordinary women who risk everything to fight the sinister battles raging in the shadows around them. As the war reaches its violent and bloody conclusion, Sandrine's fate is tied up with that of three very different men. But who is the real enemy? Who is the real threat? And who is the true guardian of the ancient secrets that for generations have drawn people to the foothills of the Pyrenean mountains?

• ISBN10: 140912083X
• ISBN13: 9781409120834
• Publish Date: 20 June 2013 (first published 13 September 2012)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 15 March 2014
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
• Imprint: Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 976
• Language: English

Reviews

[Lianne]

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.