The City of Tears by Kate Mosse is an historical epic that deals with loss, tragedy and love experienced through the religious wars between the Catholics and the Huguenots. Minou and her husband Piet go to Paris to attend a royal wedding between the Catholic Crown and the Huguenot King. They thought the Holy War would end. But it was just the beginning of strife and conflict that lasted many years and killed several family members and friends.

The hardest part to me was the beginning, because I have no historical background and know no French. But after a while, the story blossoms and becomes interesting, and is very understandable with the occasional unfamiliar word or expression encountered. I thought the ending was great. I don't think it was predictable at all.

I haven't read the first book in the series, but would love to go back and read it. This book is super thick and long. It is hard to hold as a thick paperback. I wish it could have been made into two books. But other than that, I really enjoyed reading this one! ( )

*I received an e-arc of this book from Net Galley. All opinions are mine. Receiving a free copy of this book did not alter my review in any way.

I review my books around five areas that I think are key in a book. They are Character, World, Plot, Writing Style, and Enjoyment.

Character: 3
- If I had to choose a favorite character from The City of Tears I would pick Piet. He is the main character's husband and one of the best characters in this book. My least favorite character was Marta, frankly a spoiled brat, and daughter of the main character and her husband. My next least favorite was Minou, the main character herself. I liked her quite well in the first book, but in this book, she made several choices that I felt were very immature for her. She purports herself as an independent and strong woman but lets the decisions of others decide how she will act. This just doesn't make any sense to me. So, unfortunately, there aren't a lot of redemptive characters in this book. For myself anyway.

World: 3.5
- Since I have read quite a few of Mosse's books I'm very in love with medieval France. The locations were much easier to follow in this book because they weren't obscurely French. In many of her other novels, the French terminology and locations are lost on me. But, while reading The City of Tears I didn't find the world to be distracting from the story. This made it easier to read.

Plot: 3
- This was something I struggled with throughout most of this book. There are three main sections in this book and they are all several years apart. So you will read one section and it will have its own plot and climax. Then you skip several years in the future and have another plot and climax and conclusion. It's the same for all three sections. So technically you are reading three different stories about the same group of people. It's a very interesting way to write a book. That said, there were a lot of "dry" sections. With not a lot happening with the plot or the characters. It took me a good month to get through this book.

Writing Style: 3.5
- I do enjoy Mosse's writing style. The character's language feels authentic. I don't know much about how people in medieval France spoke, but the way Mosse has written their dialogue and the way that they word things makes the story feel authentic. It was very easy to imagine wandering the streets of Paris or taking a horseback ride through the Midi.

Enjoyment: 3
- I will say that I enjoyed the beginning and the end of this book. The middle was not my favorite. There was only one thing that I was curious about and that is a relationship that springs up toward the end of the book. I don't want to say what it is because it would be spoilery, but it just didn't seem like it would have actually happened in the time period this book is set in.

Overall, The City of Tears got a 3.2/5 star rating from me. It was an ok book. It was long and there were some very boring bits, particularly in the middle. I enjoyed the writing style and of course medieval France, but other than that this book didn't really stand out to me. Oh, I should mention the "cliffhanger" ending. It didn't come as much of a surprise to me but it does set up for the final book in the trilogy. ( )

A royal wedding takes Minou and Piet and their family to Paris, but in the days and weeks before their departure they experience a big shock and a surprise loss in the family. In Paris, tensions between Protestants and Catholics are bubbling under the surface and erupt into violence after the wedding. Minou and Piet escape to Amsterdam and build a new life there, but Amsterdam is not without its own tensions. Alongside, family secrets and losses also play they part.

This book hooked me into the story and kept me there throughout. ( )

I've read the first two books, and I am reviewing both together. I'm not likely to read the third.

I love historical novels, but I think that this had some pointless bloody or overdone subplots, as if there wasn't enough going on in reality. I have seen some complaints that this is Catholic-bashing, but if writers can't discuss what really happened in history, that I don't want to see any other religions' misdeeds criticized either, say the treatment of British, Irish, and American Catholics, A friend, from a different branch of Christianity, complained about the persecution of her ancestors, that is people from the same religion in earlier times, not necessarily actual relatives. After listening to this for a couple of decades, I told her that unfortunately, it was true that my ancestors persecuted hers. Then I reminded her of what she already knew: it is equally true that her ancestors persecuted my ancestors, and that the pair of them persecuted the Anabaptists and the Jews, so neither one of them has clean hands.

In any case, as is realistic, most of the characters, including some that are very sympathetic and admirable, are Catholic. Members of the central family do convert to being Huguenots, but I don't think that's unfair. What may disturb some people is that the two villains are Catholic. One is an ambitious Catholic priest , so I don't think we can expect him to be sympathetic. The other, well I don't want to give away the plot, but her Catholicism is pretty irrelevant. I would just as soon that such an over-the-top character had been left out altogether.

I think that most of the books are excellent historical fiction, extremely vivid, with lots of period detail. There are some serious flaws, however. The author uses the motif of an unknown heritage in both books, applying to different people -- that's at least once too often, and another reason we didn't need the over-the-top character. I don't think that either case adds too much anyway, except for extra motivation to the villains. There's already plenty of action just in the characters being caught up in history.

Both books take place in the 16th century. Each is prefaced by a snippet that takes place in the late 19th century, presumably involving descendants of the original characters. I don't particularly like this structure, and it certainly won't keep me around to find out who they are. I've heard that this is intended to consists of 3, 4, or 5 books. Unless the author intends to take a flying leap over centuries, I would think 5 at least.

I was gripped by the first book, and grabbed the next book as soon as I could, but after the trip from Paris to Amsterdam in the latter, I found that I had lost a lot of sympathy for the main character, Minou. Again, not to give too much away; this may be a little unfair, since it is true that people who are grieving too often lose sight of the people that they still have, but altogether, it put me off. She remains a charitable woman, but not a forgiving one, which I find unreasonable under the circumstances. The Alteration, which is when the Protestants took control of previously Catholic-headed Amsterdam, was supposed to have been pretty much bloodless, and relatively civilized. But Mosse must stick in a violent scene where a character that I have great respect for gets killed, for no obvious plot reason. We've spent of these books wading in blood that was actually shed, do we really need this?

I finished the book, but it ended with a personal drama that seemed distinctly odd and unexplained, but I don't think that I'll read the third book to find out what happened. ( )

Good but the first one (Burning Chambers) was more gripping. This could have used a bit more editing - too long in places. Still a fun read - especially on a winter vacation in the snow. ( )