The City of Tears
While Minou Reydon-Joubert, her Calvinist husband, Piet, and their children ready themselves for the journey to Paris, where the marriage between Henry III of Navarre and Margaret of Valois is to mark the end of decades of religious violence, they become aware that Catholic resentment is building against them and their fellow Protestants. Even before they reach their final destination, they are viciously attacked, and once they arrive at the capital, come face to face with anti-Huguenot feeling running so high that the infamous St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 23-24 August 1572 results.
The Reydon-Joubert family is rent apart, and although the family flees to Amsterdam, where they are able to make a new start after Piet lays claim to his true provenance, they are unhappy because their much-beloved daughter has gone missing. Hoping for her return, the Reydon-Jouberts can’t know that she remembers hardly anything of her former life and is eventually held prisoner by their sworn enemy, who intends to use her against them.
Will the chaotic twists and turns of religious strife reunite the loving people the conflict has torn asunder? And what role might the “Sudarium,” a sacred relic, play in the coming together of a family? Will its members be avenged on the man who caused their misery, or is their story far from over? The sequel to The Burning Chambers, The City of Tears poses as many mysteries as it resolves, making readers long for the next installment of Huguenot adventures. A Kate Mosse classic, this book remains entertaining and riveting until the very last page.
