Search

Search only in certain items:

The Beasts of Paris
The Beasts of Paris
Stef Penney | 2023 | Fiction & Poetry
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
What I love most about historical fiction, is that I get to learn something new about the history of a place or a time I didn’t know about. I mean, I’d never heard of the Siege of Paris in 1870, and yet I now know a lot more about it through the characters in The Beasts of Paris.

There’s Victor, the assistant vet at the Menagerie; Anne has been an inmate at the women’s Salpetriere asylum for many years, provided entertainment for paying Parisians thanks to the immoral Dr. Jospin, and now comes to work as the Chief Vet’s maid at the Menagerie; Ellis is hiding his trauma from the American Civil War where he was a doctor, and is attempting to become a poet; and Lawrence is a Canadian Photographer.

We learn of the horrors of the siege and the further horrors of its aftermath. The descriptions of these events and how the Parisians both live through and cope with deprivation and fear, are emotional and engaging.

I was left wondering who exactly the Parisian beasts were; those inside or outside the menagerie?

Just an excellent story.
  
TB
The Bone Curse (Benjamin Oris, #1)
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Excellent read. Well written, with a great plot and characters. I was engrossed from start to finish. I couldn't put it down. This book is a supernatural suspenseful thriller. Ben Oris is a sensible, medical student until he cuts his hand on a old bone in the catacombs of Paris. The cut becomes a horrible wound that leads him into a world of Voodoo curses that threatens everything he knows and loves. He doesn't have to do this alone, he has his best friend Laurette to help him through this nightmare.