Citadel

Product Information

This idea of a connection between the story of a secret Cathar treasure and the grail was given substance in the 20th century by the work of Otto Rahn, a German historian and SS officer who believed that the Cathars held the key to the grail mystery, and that the evidence was somewhere beneath the ruins of Montségur. His writings attracted the attention of Himmler, whose own fascination with the occult, and with the possible ancient pedigree of an Aryan race, led to the founding of the Ahnenerbe, a society dedicated to research into proving the historical origins of a master race. Mosse is the queen of historical mystery. She understands more than most historical writers how to weave the past with the present. In fact, she's more than adept at writing two parallel tales with hundreds of years between the two. As the stories unfold, it becomes more evident how Mosse intends to connect the parallel tales. While fiction, this novel is written around real events of the Second World War, and was inspired by the massacre at Baudrigues on August 19, 1944 and the women that died there.

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. 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.

The story itself is utterly cliche ridden. The lovers look into one another's eyes. their hearts burn with passion, there is much gazing at the stars, there is a Jewish lover, who is, of course taken and so and so on. In short, there is no originality or fervor in the writing. It is one trite cliche after another. In fact, as I was reading it, I kept imagining I was marking my Year 11 short stories and wanted to underline bits and write CLICHE in large red letters in the margin. If I had found several spelling mistakes and multiple erroneous attempts at a semi-colon I would not have been surprised. 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. In Nazi occupied France the Citadel are a group of all-women freedom fighters - part of the Resistance, and determined to outwit both the Germans and the evil French collaborators. Led by 18 year old Sandrine Vidal, her sister and their friends, these woman show courage and daring, never knowing who is watching them or who will betray them to the authorities.

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.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. . . “ 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] 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.