My review of The King’s Command: For God or Country By Rosemary Hayes @HayesRosemary @cathiedunn

The King’s Command: For God or Country
By Rosemary Hayes

Publication Date: July 3rd, 2023, Publisher: Sharpe Books, Page Length: 415, Genre: Historical Fiction

16 year old Lidie Brunier has everything; looks, wealth, health and a charming suitor but there are dark clouds on the horizon. Lidie  and her family are committed Huguenots and Louis XIV has sworn to stamp out this ‘false religion’ and make France a wholly Catholic country. Gradually Lidie’s comfortable life starts to disintegrate as Huguenots are stripped of all rights and the King sends his brutal soldiers into their homes to force them to become Catholics. Others around her break under pressure but Lidie and her family refuse to convert. With spies everywhere and the ever present threat of violence, they struggle on. Then a shocking betrayal forces Lidie’s hand and her only option is to try and flee the country. A decision that brings unimaginable hardship, terror and tragedy and changes her life for ever.

 Book Rating:

📚📚📚📚📚⭐ = A book in a million

📚📚📚📚📚 = I could not put this book down. I Highly Recommend it.

📚📚📚📚 = A really great read.

📚📚📚 = It was enjoyable.

📚📚 = It was okay.

📚 = Um...! 😕

.My Review
The King’s Command
📚📚📚📚 = A really great read.

A story of bravery, injustice and faith.

The King's Command is a compelling story about family love, unshakable faith and an edict that threatens all those who defy it. 

There are several characters whose story we follow, but mostly it is about Lidie and how she risks everything for her faith. I thought Lidie was a believable character who is determined to live and praise God the way she chooses no matter what the consequence. I thought her incredibly brave, although at times I thought her life would be much easier if she recant her faith as other family members had. She occasionally has a holier-than-thou attitude, along with her mother and her father-in-law about those who did recant, which I found a little unsettling, but I guess that was how they had been brought up. I could sympathise with their plight, but I don't think I would have put my children in such abject danger. Call me a coward, but the welfare of my children would definitely come before everything else. 

The story did open my eyes to the plight of the Huguenots and it was very well written. It was thankfully a book that does have a happy ending, which makes the journey Lidie went on kinda worthwhile!

You can pick up your copy of this book on Amazon

Rosemary Hayes

Rosemary Hayes has written over fifty books for children and young adults. She writes  in different genres, from edgy teenage fiction (The Mark), historical fiction (The Blue Eyed Aborigine and Forgotten Footprints), middle grade fantasy (Loose Connections, The Stonekeeper’s Child and Break Out)  to chapter books for early readers and texts for picture books. Many of her books have won or been shortlisted for awards and several have been translated into different languages.

Rosemary has travelled widely but now lives in South Cambridgeshire. She has a background in publishing, having worked for Cambridge University Press before setting up her own company Anglia Young Books which she ran for some years. She has been a reader for a well-known authors’ advisory service and runs creative writing workshops for both children and adults.

Rosemary has recently turned her hand to adult fiction and her historical novel ‘The King’s Command’ is about the terror and tragedy suffered by the French Huguenots during the reign of Louis XIV.

Author Links:
Website, Twitter,  Amazon Author Page, Goodreads