I bought The Map of Bones on a Waterstones’ buy one get one half price deal, and didn’t realise it was the fourth and final book in a series until later. The extreme version of my habit of reading sequels first. In the end, it didn’t matter as there is sufficient backstory to make sense of it all, and skillfully done too, as one would expect from this author.

Essentially, in 1687 Suzanne and her grandmother flee their home in La Rochelle after it has been taken over by dragonnades, Catholic ...