The Burning Chambers (The Joubert Family Chronicles)

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Gripping, thrilling, a spectacular work of scholarly reimagining, The Ghost Ship is a beautiful book about two women, about love, courage, suffering, and a world in which everything was on a knife edge. A stunning novel, a whole world recreated - Kate Williams, historian and author of Rival Queens Mosse does what good popular historical novelists do best – make the past enticingly otherworldly, while also claiming it as our own - Independent Its synopsis goes on: “The Barbary Coast, 1621. A mysterious vessel silently rides the swell. She is known only as the Ghost Ship. For these past months, her crew has fought to liberate those enslaved by corsairs. But the two bravest mariners on board are not who they seem. And the stakes could not be higher: if captured, they will be hanged for their alleged crimes…” But the ship’s crew hides a secret, and the stakes could not be higher. The bravest among them are not who they seem: if arrested, they will hang for their alleged crimes. Can they survive their journey and escape their fate? First-rate cloak and dagger excitement – who knew the religious wars between Catholics and Huguenots in sixteenth-century France could be so riveting to modern audiences? Kate Mosse captures the details of life in the Languedoc region of France, famed for its beauty, but hiding many secrets, in this masterful novel - Margaret George, New York Times bestselling author of The Confessions of Young Nero

Another meticulously researched and stunningly written novel by a much-loved and highly accomplished author. I adored it! - Santa Montefiore, bestselling author of An Italian Girl in Brooklyn The Ghost Ship is utterly absorbing. I couldn’t put it down and fell in love with her two main characters, and felt bereft when it ended - Louise Minchin, BBC journalist, host of the Her Spirit podcast and author of Fearless Toulouse: As the religious divide deepens in the Midi, and old friends become enemies, Minou and Piet both find themselves trapped in Toulouse, facing new dangers as sectarian tensions ignite across the city, the battle lines are drawn in blood and the conspiracy darkens further. Meanwhile, as a long-hidden document threatens to resurface, the mistress of Puivert is obsessed with uncovering its secret and strengthening her power.... Transporting, intelligent, heartwarming and intriguing, this is historical fiction at its finest - Lucy Atkins, author of Magpie LaneAn invitation has arrived for Minou Joubert and her family to attend this historic wedding in Paris in August. But what Minou does not know is that the Joubert family’s oldest enemy, Vidal, will also be there. Nor that, within days of the marriage, on the eve of the Feast Day of St Bartholomew, her family will be scattered to the four winds and one of her beloved children will have disappeared without trace . . . Another of Mosse’s immersive dramas, which takes you to the heart of the past - Grazia on The Burning Chambers But her years of caring for family members have also paid another, perhaps unexpected, dividend. “I’m aware that some of the scenes I write in my fiction have been absolutely given more depth because of the emotions that I have experienced in real life. None of my characters are me, none of the characters are doing things that I want to do or wish to do. But the emotions that go into a novel, they come from somewhere, don’t they?” May 1572: for ten violent years the Wars of Religion have raged across France. Neighbours have become enemies, countless lives have been lost, and the country has been torn apart over matters of religion, citizenship and sovereignty. But now a precarious peace is in the balance and a royal wedding has been negotiated. It is a marriage that could see France reunited at last. A sweeping and epic love story, ranging from France in 1610 to Amsterdam and the Canary Islands in the 1620s, The Ghost Ship is a thrilling novel of adventure and buccaneering, love and revenge, stolen fortunes and hidden secrets on the High Seas. Most of all, it is a tale of defiant women in a man's world.

Similarly, with the caveat that she is not a historian, she believes that had Henry IV of France not been assassinated in 1610, there is a case to be made that the French Revolution might not have followed or, at least, not in the way it did. “Because what happened at that moment was that his toleration, his attempt to build a modern society, which is what he was doing, his understanding that Huguenots – you wouldn’t use this phrase, but it’s essentially what they were – were the working middle class. And the wealth was there – that wasn’t to do with aristocracy, or what would have been seen as the peasantry at the other end. He was building a modern state that could have stood against anyone. Piracy. Romance. Revenge. Across the seas of the seventeenth century, two seafarers are forced to fight for their lives. The sequel to The City of Tears, The Ghost Ship is the third novel in the Joubert Family Chronicles from bestselling author Kate Mosse. A gorgeously written, utterly absorbing epic and, despite being set in the sixteenth century, has some very pertinent messages for our time about the evils of religious persecution and the transcendent power of love and family. In case it’s not clear enough yet, I absolutely LOVED it - Lucy Foley, author of The Hunting Party Welcome to #WomanInHistory, the global campaign to honour and celebrate the incredible women of the past in whose footsteps we walk. The campaign began during the publication week for my latest novel, The City of Tears, at a FANE event on 20 January 2021. In an event with Jojo Moyes - with special guests Bernardine Evaristo, Ken Follett, Lee Child, Bettany Hughes, Paula Hawkins, Anita Anand, Sara Collins, Professor Kate Williams, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Madeline Miller and Damian Barr - we invited everyone to nominate a woman from history they wanted to champion or thought should be better known. I’m delighted to say there will now be a book – publishing in October 2022 – and a television documentary series inspired by the campaign.Piracy. Romance. Revenge. Across the seas of the seventeenth century, two seafarers are forced to fight for their love and their lives. The sequel to The City of Tears, The Ghost Ship is the third novel in The Joubert Family Chronicles from bestselling author Kate Mosse. Another of Mosse’s immersive dramas, which takes you to the heart of the past - Grazia Book of the Week The Founder of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and recently launched Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, Mosse is an award-winning novelist, playwright, essayist and non-fiction writer. Her most recent feminist non-fiction book, Warrior Queens and Quiet Revolutionaries: How Women (Also) Built the World (Mantle, October 2022), is now the basis for a one-woman theatre show.