The Huguenot Sword [Paperback]

Shawn Lamb (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 2011

For Faith. For Friendship. For Freedom. In the time of Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, when being a Protestant could mean death, The Huguenot Sword roamed the streets of Paris by night, defending those faithful to the young heretical religion. The nobility scorned them as ruffians, to the oppressed Protestants they were saviors, but to the Cardinal Guards they were a pestilence needing to be terminated. The situation becomes desperate when those in power launch a bold plan to destroy the group. One wrong move can be fatal. But the ordeal of Paris pales in comparison to the possible annihilation of their faith and people at the battle of La Rochelle.

Product Details

• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: Allon Books (October 4, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 098292044X
• ISBN-13: 978-0982920442
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,567,632 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Shawn has been named as 1 of 50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading 2011, a book currently for sale on Amazon. She is the author of the epic YA fantasy series ALLON and the Christian historical fiction for adults - THE HUGUENOT SWORD.

Shawn pursued her love of writing and took it to a professional level, writing for the 1980s Filmation animated series "BRAVESTARR". Along the way, she won several screenwriting awards, including a Certificate of Merit from the American Screenwriters Association.

Shawn lives near Nashville with her husband, Rob, and their daughter, Briana.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars For Faith, Friendship and Freedom December 7, 2011

By Mary C. Findley

Format:Paperback

I am interested in church history, especially regarding Protestants, and as soon as I saw this book I wanted to read it. I got the Amazon Kindle version on a 99 cent Cyber Monday sale after a heads-up from the author on Goodreads. It deals mostly with young adult characters and includes a number of well-known historical figures. For those who don't know, Huguenots were Protestants who tried to obtain the right to live as citizens and practice their faith in Catholic France but were severely persecuted, especially under Cardinal Richelieu.

Shawn Lamb has created a great study of how ordinary people look at and practice their beliefs, and how those beliefs affect their own lives and conduct, and their interactions with others. If you like the Three Musketeers, the Scarlet Pimpernell, and Zorro, you will like this story. Adventure, disguises, intrigues, court life, expectations of family, arranged marriage, and elements of romance and temptation all enter into the plot and storyline.

Three young men try to live by their motto, "For Friendship, for Faith, and for Freedom," while aiding the Huguenot Resistance in France. Shawn Lamb provides plenty of swordfighting, pursuits and escapes, and, most importantly, insight into how young people view faith as they mature and make decisions about what they really believe and how it will shape their conduct.

Though I enjoyed the story and characters very much, I found the book contained some technical imperfections. The author was kind enough to share her process of writing and "vetting" a book and her many years of experience with different ways of bringing a book to print. She graciously promised to take my comments about the book into consideration in her future writing.

So, take it all together, the Huguenot Sword was an exciting, satisfying read, a tribute to faith and its struggles to grow, and an opportunity for me to learn firsthand something about how an author gets a book out of her head and into print, or into my Kindle, in this case.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Historical accuracy - really? August 14, 2012

By Fernand

Format:Paperback

I started reading this book out of interest for history, and for what seemed like a Musketeer look-alike story.
I am no expert of the 17th century nor of the Huguenots, but there were some descriptions and facts that seemed to me either wrong or anachronical, and this made me seriously doubt of the historical accuracy throughout the pages I read.
For instance right in the beginning of the book, the protagonists turn to Rue Réanmur - it is actually Réaumur. But this is more than just french misspelling: The Rue Réaumur is a Haussmannian street of Paris, which was built in the... 19th century under Napoléon III. It just felt like the author had opened google maps and picked up a pleasant (but misspelled) street name in central Paris.
This in one example among others - and not only historical, some parts sounded full of french clichés.
I didn't finish it, and read Alexandre Dumas instead.
I'd have put it 2 stars if it didn't come with DRMs.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Put off by very sloppy editing January 25, 2013

By Viktor Steiner

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

The storyline is good, with many probably accurate historical facts and exciting tensions both on the religious/political and the romantic level. I'd like to hear a bit more about the Huguenots true convictions and spirituality. Unfortunately, the prose is simply not edited at all - full of missing or leftover words, incomplete sentences, bad grammar, spelling mistakes, poor dialogue - which seriously puts me off. And the action is sometimes rather trite, e.g. someone is inexplicably attacked by an assailant in the street, one of them dies and no-one seems to be surprised or affected by the incident; and this happens multiple times.