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ClareR (6256 KP) rated The Beasts of Paris in Books

Oct 1, 2024  
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.
  
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ClareR (6256 KP) rated The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby in Books

Jun 24, 2026  
The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby
The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby
Ellery Lloyd | 2024 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry, Mystery
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby is a complex, clever and thoroughly enjoyable mystery set over three timelines and three destinations: Paris, Cambridge and Dubai.
I haven’t read Ellery Lloyds second book, The Club, but I have read People Like Her - and its completely different stylistically and thematically to that.
This starts in Paris in 1938, when artist and heiress Juliette Willoughby dies in a fire in her Parisian apartment/ art studio. We then jump 50 years in to the future to Cambridge where two art students discover that the fire appears not to have been an accident, and indeed is linked in some way to a murder in present day Dubai.
This is so complex that there is no way that I could try and describe the storyline beyond this - and I wouldn’t want to. It’s for the reader to find out what happens and how - and what a ride it is! I was carried along by the fantastic narration of the three voice actors, and the journey to the end was exciting and wholly surprising. I didn’t see it coming at all. Great characters (even the unlikeable ones!), interesting destinations and a riveting mystery. Recommended!
  
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Jessica Cashen (1 KP) rated The Bone Curse (Benjamin Oris, #1) in Books

May 16, 2018  
TB
The Bone Curse (Benjamin Oris, #1)
Carrie Rubin | 2018
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.