The Mark of the King

Jocelyn Green's novel tells the story of Julianne, a parisian midwife unjustly accused of the death of an aristocrat mother in her care. Sentenced to life, she is branded a murderess with the mark of the King, the fleur-de-lis, burnt into her shoulder.

Given the choice to trade her sentence for exile in the Americas, Julianne joins the throngs of convicts, starved and abused, who are being shipped to New Orleans. Here, against horrific realities, Julianne begins to forge her own life and reputation, even in the face of mounting tensions between the French and the Natchez Indians. Ultimately Julianne is a survivor, and after journeying with her through the brutality she endures, the conclusion of the novel and the love story she discovers feels just, hopeful, and a vindication of everything gone before.

There is some fascinating French and American history woven through the story. The French desperately needed to colonise the harsh frontier they had claimed as Louisiana, in honor of King Louis XIV, and particularly the failing outpost of New Orleans. They did this largely through transportation, forcing marriages between convicts with much brutality, to populate the region.This part of the story is so horrendous it's hard to comprehend it is based on historical fact. 

This novel really drew me in, often confronting and heartbreaking, I was totally caught up in Julianne's story. There is a fair amount of tension throughout and betrayal, but in the midst of all the awfulness a moving love story develops. It's enjoyable to read a strong female character, who isn't rescued by her hero, but works hard to save herself.

Available as an eBook through Libby

Posted by Jaime

The Heart of the Ritz by Luke Devenish

I didn’t immediately engage with this historical fiction, but that may have had something to do with it being the first few days of level 4 lockdown in the Covid-19 national emergency.

The Heart of the Ritz is a story about the resistance movement and the occupation of Paris; beginning in 1940 and ending four years later with its liberation. The novel follows the people who live in the Hotel Ritz; the families, the high ranking Germans, the collaborators, the resistance fighters, the Jews, the women with secrets to hide and people to protect, and it is also about love.

Polly is a 16 year old orphan at the beginning of this story, and is being sent from Australia to live with her Aunt Marjorie in Paris after her Father dies. When her aunt dies suddenly the guardianship of Polly is handed over to Marjorie’s three friends: Comtesse Alexandrine, a converted Jew; Zita, a film star; and Lana Mae, a rich American. They take Polly to live with them in the palatial Hotel Ritz. All are keeping secrets from Polly about themselves and Marjorie. When the Nazis invade Paris and take over most of the Hotel Ritz the four women’s lives are changed as they adapt to sharing a room in the hotel and learn to interact with the high ranking Germans. Polly befriends Tommy, a Hungarian Jew, and illegitimate son of Alexandrine’s husband. Tommy is being hidden as a bar attendant at the Ritz by Alexandrine, to try to keep him safe. Together Tommy and Polly, with the help of a blind girl Odile, start quietly taking action against the occupiers. They call themselves the freedom volunteers. Overtime their escalating and more daring missions come to the notice of the Gestapo, suspicions and accusations are beginning to surface. Innocent people are being taken away, never to be seen again. As the Nazis and French police begin rounding up Jews, the guardians take action to protect the ones they love.

The story builds to dramatic acts of resistance and courage, as more resistance operators at the hotel are revealed. Collaborators and spies for the Nazis show their true colours. Alexandrine, Lana Mae, Zita and Marjorie’s secrets are told. The story finally ends with the liberation of France and the Hotel Ritz.

At the end of the book, the author Luke Devenish tells us The Heart of the Ritz was based on real life events. The characters in this story were based on people who showed courage, resilience and sacrifice for the greater freedom of France.

At the beginning of this novel, I compared the occupation to our own lockdown with queuing for food, and restrictions of movement. I was wrong, the occupation and reality of war in France far outweighed anything we are enduring. We are being kept safe, while they were never safe.

The Heart of the Ritz is an enjoyable read for lovers of historical fiction. Score 3.75 out of 5.

Reviewed by Lynette 

Catalogue link:  The Heart of the Ritz

This Poison Will Remain by Fred Vargas

Vargas is one of the most original authors in the crime fiction genre. Her award-winning Commissaire Adamsberg series is entertaining for a bunch of reasons. Paris and rural France settings: check. Creative and surprising storylines: check. Animated scenes set in cafes and restaurants reminiscent of Simenon’s Maigret novels: check. A police department peopled with eccentric detectives: check.

It is this last point that keeps me coming back to the series more than any other. As if Adamsberg isn’t oddball enough – he’s scruffy, secretive and sentimental, with a weird intuition that can sniff out guilt at a hundred paces. But his team in the Serious Crimes squad are even odder.

Voisenet would rather be an ichthyologist and has the head of a moray eel under his desk to study later. Mercedet suffers from narcolepsy, taking naps during the day in the cushiony corner of an unused office. Violet Retancourt is of Amazonian proportions, and ‘worth ten men’, but is the carer of Snowball, the office cat who sleeps on the disused photocopier always left on to keep it warm. To name but three.

In This Poison Will Remain, Adamsberg returns from leave to a murder case that needs careful handling. An elderly woman alerts him to the mysterious deaths of three old men in Nimes - each bitten by a recluse spider. Not normally fatal, these bites have turned to septicaemia and the victims’ age and tardiness in seeking medical treatment is thought to have contributed to their deaths.

The fact that two of the men were part of a gang in an orphanage and tormented other boys has Adamsberg sensing foul play. But getting his team on board, a team whose confidence in his leadership has been seriously undermined, has the Commissaire acting even more secretively than ever.

The novel has plenty of twists to keep you turning the pages, with a few key themes around child abuse and the effects of isolation, plus some interesting facts around religious recluses from medieval times. All the same, it’s a cracking good read that will make you laugh and yearn for another in the series. Best read in order, the novels first introduced us to Adamsberg in The Chalk Circle Man. Recommended.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: This Poison Will Remain

Into the World by Stephanie Parkyn

Running away to sea is not I imagine an easy task; but doing it disguised as a male ship steward while recovering from the birth of a baby is surely beyond the realms of believability. But believable it is; for this fictional account is based on the real life story of Marie –Louise Girardin who in 1791 flees France and the wrath of her family to sail the South Seas.

With her breasts swaddled and a letter of introduction under her new name Louis, she finds a position (and her own cabin) on the French exploration ship the Recherche. Recherche, with Huon de Kermadec’s ship the Esperance, sets out on what will become a three year journey in search of the lost French navigator La Pérouse.

Leaving behind France in the midst of the French Revolution the ships navigate to New Caledonia, the south-western coast of New Holland (Western Australia), Van Dieman’s Land and the Friendly Isles, before completing their journey in the Dutch East Indies.

Struggling with the loss of her son Marie –Louise/Louis divides her on board time between stretching the quickly diminishing food supplies and mixing with the contingent of scientists sent to both collect New World specimens as well as plant French seeds in foreign soil.

Whilst the crew of the Recherche may be suffering from endless days and nights on the seas there is no such dreariness in store for the reader. Stephanie Parkyn has taken the bare bones of this Age of Discovery story and turned it into a realistic character driven narrative.

Through the eyes of our feisty brave heroine Marie-Louise; Parkyn shows us the world of the French royal aristocracy juxtaposed against Olympe de Gouges and the other women fighting for their rights in the French Revolution. Then from the bottom of the world we experience both the hand to mouth existence of the people of New Caledonia to the resource rich generous people of Tongatabou.

Although the short chapters help to move this story on very quickly, it is the vividly drawn characters, and wonderful descriptions of the South Seas in the eighteenth century that make this one very good historical novel.

Reviewed by Miss Moneypenny

Catalogue link:  Into the World