The City of Tears (The Burning Chambers #2) Review

“The suffering of those we love is harder to bear than anything we feel on our own behalf.”

I read The City of Tears by Kate Mosse for two reasons. The first because I love her writing and the second because it fulfilled a criteria on my first reading challenge of 2021 which can be found here https://fictionvixenreads.com/2021/04/21/first-reading-challenge-of-2021/, which was read the next book in a series.

The City of Tears is the second instalment in the five-book The Burning Chambers series and continues this enthralling historical fiction saga that explores the history of Huguenot refugees in Europe. It’s ten years after the events in the first book and many things have changed. It’s August, 1572, and Minou Joubert (aka Marguerite Reydon-Joubert, Châtelaine of Puiver) is now married to Piet Reydon, a Huguenot soldier and they have two children – seven year old Marta and toddler Jean-Jacques. The pair leave behind the serenity of Puivert in Languedoc and travel to Paris to celebrate the royal wedding of Charles IX’s sister, Catholic Marguerite de Valois, and Protestant Henry III of Navarre, the first Bourbon King of France, with the marriage intended to bring peace to France after a decade of the brutal and bloody religious wars, to unite the divided country. However, once there they become aware that Piet’s childhood friend turned enemy Vidal, who is now a Catholic cardinal is also in the city. Alongside the Duke of Guise and other renegade Catholics, Vidal is planning to strike when important Huguenot’s are in town to witness the wedding. But the violence spreads into what is now known as the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in which thousands of Protestant Huguenots were slaughtered in the streets on the orders of the French king. In the chaos and desperation to escape Paris, young Marta disappears. In exile from France, they establish a new life in Amsterdam, but not knowing their daughters fate begins to impact their marriage considerably.

I loved the character portrayal by the author especially of Minou, Piet, and Cardinal Valentin. Minou is a wife,mother and a strong woman who stands up for her beliefs. Piet is a central character to a transition of power from Catholic to Protestant in Amsterdam. The cardinal, a religious person of vile character is hungry for religious relics and relentless in his pursuit for them.

It’s breathtakingly written and the backstories of the characters are given more depth as the narrative continues. Kate Mosse brings to life the terrors and perils of the times with trauma and tragedy present at every turn. Filled to the brim with drama, danger, thrills, emotion, action and much more, I cannot recommend The City of Tears highly enough.

The City of Tears is a well researched, intricate novel that compelled me to keep reading late in to the night. In my opinion it is better than the first installment and the cliffhanger at the end of the book left me frustrated and shouting out loud simply because I know I have to wait to find out the outcome. it is a 5 star read, if I could i would award it more stars I loved it from cover to cover.

The Burning Chambers Review

I love historical fiction and in my opinion Kate Mosse is one of the OG’s of historical fiction and with this little beuaty she really did not disappoint.

The first book in her newest series of novels, The Burning Chambers is set in France, in the year 1562, when the Wars of Religion were beginning to take hold. Which after googling I found were a sequence of eight civil wars between the Catholic and the Huguenot factions and the loss and destruction was profound, with several million people dead or displaced over the 36 years these wars were wagered for.

This isnt a period of history that i know anything about before reading this novel but that did not hinder my experience at all and if anything this novel made my interest peak for a period of history that was relatively unknown to me before.

The Burning Chambers contains an impressive amount of historical detail woven into a story that is highly attainable and vividly engaging enriched with imagery. I was instantantaneously swept off of my feet into the suspense and richly detailed lives of the characters. It’s a mammoth book with 600 pages, but they whirled by and I really couldn’t put it down. I even lost sleep to carry on reading it and I carried on reading it well into the morning after I had woken up too.

These barbarous wars of religion must have been so terrible to live through and Mosse does an amazing job of bringing this to the forefront of the novel. The corruption threaded through all factions of society were palpable and each individual had to keep their wits about them at all times, with no idea who you could trust. Regardless of this though, communities would join together to protect each other against the forces that willed their destruction. there is a wonderful sense of community and love within the horrors of this novel.

One of the mysteries in play in the novel set agasint this brutal war is that of the protagonist Miou’s heritage and the woman who for reasons uncleae until the conclusion part of the novel is pursuing her and has no limits to what she will do to achieve an end to her means.

The novel is filled to the brim with high drama and captivating suspense. it is crammed with history, gothic undertones, crime, mystery, suspense, romance, murder and so much more. As with all of her wtiring Mosse has accomanpanied section pages with pictures that set up the scene perfectly it was a journey of pure delight and a nice touch that firmly gives the reader a sense of time and place. The Burning Chambers is a novel that will appeal to a wide range of readers and it really is Kate Mosse at her very best.

I gave this novel ***** as again she is in my opinion one of the best historical fiction authors out there and this has become a series i will keep coming back too in the future.

Dont forget to check out my upcoming review for the second installment in this series, The City Of Tears, which i have akmost finished and is just as wonderful – if not more so – than this installment.