Land of Hope by Paul C. R. Monk is the third and final book in the Huguenot Connection trilogy. It picks up shortly after the end of the previous book with Jeanne continuing her journey to England. Her and Paul are traveling through Europe to a port where they can catch a ship. However, their journey has become increasingly perilous the further they travel. France has tired of their neighbors giving refuge to fleeing Huguenots and have invaded. Jeanne and Paul must now dodge battalions of French soldiers and try to stay safe as cities are literally sacked around them. Across the ocean Jacob has temporarily sounds are harbor in New York with his friends Mademoiselle Douvivier and her new husband. While waiting for the necessary weather change for his own journey to England he helps his friends work on the legalities of purchasing the necessary land to create a new Huguenot township not far from New York. As each works on making it safely to England they also each grapple with hope they will be successful and worry about each other and their two daughters still in Catholic controlled France.
This was a good ending to the story and one that I did enjoy even if it was still fairly sad for a lot of the book. I never really thought too much about the Huguenots and their treatment in France during this time period before but having read this series I do feel like I gained a lot of insight into it. Their quiet faith and in many cases resolute faith really helped to sustain many of them through these events. Seeing what the French did in the name of unifying religion in their country was a little disturbing though and I did not like seeing that. While I am not sure how accurate this story is it does do a good job of showcasing the potential emotions and thought processes this group of people probably would have been experiencing. This last book did actually give me quite a bit of insight random things though such as the enmity between the Irish and the English at the time as well as origin stories for some cities in New York such as New Rochelle which was unexpected. I am not entirely certain that I enjoyed this book as it was depressing but it was enlightening as I learned a lot about the events it depicts. One of the things that I did like about it though was how it continued to delve more into events. I remember the first book had several time jumps that I didn’t really like. This book doesn’t really do that so we get more of a continuous narrative here which I liked. There was also continued depth to the characters as well as they continued their journey. We saw more growth and backstory added that helped the characters feel even more fleshed out than previously. It also made sure to reference actual difficulties they would have faced on their travels such as language barriers and difference in social customs. A decent book if not necessarily a great one but I am happy to give it four out of five stars.
This book is a good work of historical fiction and is loosely based around the forced conversion or expulsion of Huguenots in France during the late 1600’s. If you enjoy that genre or want to learn more about these events or this time period than this book may just be for you. At the same time I highly doubt that this book would hold a lot of appeal for readers who don’t fall into those categories. The book is primarily aimed at adult readers and due to the violence it contains I would mostly agree with that. In my opinion only readers over the age of about sixteen should read this though it will mostly depend on the reader in question. A good book that I hope you will consider. If you do feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.