Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Ratings Explanation

Language: Frequent exclamations of deity.  There are a handful of hells and damns.  Bastard is used a few times, ass once.

Violence: Count Kalliovski decides the magicians must die and kills Topolain by shooting him.  Topolain is later found dead in a chair with “a thin line of dried beads of blood” around his neck.  Tetu is shot in the back and presumed dead.  Thugs accost a man in an ally.  Kalliovski kills a gypsy family and leaves the dead bodies hanging in the trees.  Madame Perrien is killed.  People “hack” a guard to death.  The Dr. bleeds the Marquis when he gets sick.  Women in France join to march together carrying guns, cannons and other weapons demanding bread to eat.  Fires burn all over the city; citizens are breaking into houses, looting, killing people and destroying things.  “All the blood, all them bodies, all them flies, and the smell”.  Sido’s father hates her, yells at her and kicks her.  There are wax figures with heads stuck on pikes.  Yann uses “threads of life” to attack Milkeye by throwing chairs on his head.  Jars are filled with parts of bodies, “in one a head; in another, limbs; in another, a stack of hearts”.  The death by strangling of Anis is described.  Prisoners are taken out and slaughtered.  The Duchess is violently killed with sabers.  Sido sees piles of bodies with the limbs hacked off.  Gaurds complain of no break from the slaughter because they are getting tired.  Kalliovski hits Sido after she spits in his face.  A man is stabbed and a mob attacks a carriage.

Sexual Content: It is said about Kalliovski that “many were his mistresses and no one was his wife”.  The men should have been in court but instead were with their mistress with their breeches down.  Sido “stood silent, shivering as his hand moved slowly down toward her breast.”  Yann kisses Sido a few times.

Adult Themes- Sido wishes and hopes that her father will one day love her.  She is cast off and mistreated.  There are a few instances of drinking alcohol.  Blackmail and extortion, magic and the dark arts are all prominent parts of the storyline.  Kalliovski gives money in trade for secrets he later uses against people.  “They never suspected that the hand that fed them had also bought their souls.”

Synopsis

It is Paris, France in 1789 and the country is in turmoil and revolt.  Yann Margoza is a young gypsy boy with special gifts and magic.  He has been raised by the dwarf Tetu, also a gypsy, after losing his mother.  Together they work with a magician, performing acts for an audience until one night things go wrong and Yann finds himself running for his life, alone.  He briefly crosses paths with Sido, a young girl, unwanted, unloved and scared.  Her life has been spent in solitude and away from home, wishing to be loved and accepted by her father.  Although their encounter is brief, both Yann and Sido form a connection with each other.  They discover a mutual enemy in the evil Count Kalliovski from whom they are both trying to escape, but for different reasons.  War and evil rage around them yet Yann is determined to save Sido and avenge the deaths of the many people Count Kalliovski is responsible for.

Historical novels have always been of interest to me.  And while I didn’t enjoy reading about the horrible things that happened in France during their revolution, I was grateful for a better knowledge of the events and feelings in that time period.  This book is well written and engaging but very violent, for obvious reasons.  I, personally, have a hard time with violence so this book was harder for me to read.  I would definitely not allow my 7^th grader to read this book.  I think this book is more appropriate for upper high school levels and above.  Here is a quote that gave me a moment’s pause.  “Oh world, beware of clever sheep.  They are the truly dangerous ones, for they understand the stupidity of the flock, know just how easy it is to lead the people to slaughter.”