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  PRAISE FOR KRISTY CAMBRON

  “As intricate as a French tapestry, as lush as the Loire Valley, and as rich as heroine Ellie’s favorite pain au chocolat, The Lost Castle satisfies on every level. The three time lines weave and build upon each other as the three heroines navigate dangerous times and unravel ancient secrets. Kristy Cambron’s writing evokes each era in loving detail, and the romances are touching and poignant. C’est bon!”

  —SARAH SUNDIN, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE SEA BEFORE US AND THE WAVES OF FREEDOM SERIES

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve been so thoroughly engrossed in a novel. Kristy Cambron grabs you from the start and weaves a fabulously intricate and intoxicating tale of love and loss. Her settings are breathtaking, her historical detail impeccable, and her characters now dear friends. The Lost Castle kept me spellbound!”

  —TAMERA ALEXANDER, USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF TO WHISPER HER NAME AND CHRISTMAS AT CARNTON

  “An absolutely lovely read! Cambron weaves an enchanting story of love, loss, war, and hope in The Lost Castle. Spanning the French Revolution, World War II, and today, she masterfully carries us into each period with all the romance and danger of the best fairy tale.”

  —KATHERINE REAY, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF DEAR MR. KNIGHTLEY AND A PORTRAIT OF EMILY PRICE

  “Readers will be caught up in themes of family, loyalty, and courage—as well as a mystery and even a bit of a fairy-tale romance—in Kristy Cambron’s The Lost Castle. Cambron weaves together the lives of three very different women with vivid emotion against the lush backdrop of France.”

  —BETH K. VOGT, CHRISTY AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR

  “Cambron’s lithe prose pulls together past and present and her attention to historical detail grounds the narrative to the last breathtaking moments.”

  —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, STARRED REVIEW, FOR THE ILLUSIONIST’S APPRENTICE

  “Cambron has written a gripping tale of suspense that will please her growing fan base.”

  —LIBRARY JOURNAL, FOR THE ILLUSIONIST’S APPRENTICE

  “At once a love story and a mystery, The Illusionist’s Apprentice will appeal to anyone who likes novels about strong, enigmatic women.”

  —HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY

  “Cambron takes readers on an amazing journey into the world of vaudeville illusionists during the Roaring Twenties. This novel includes an intriguing mystery that adds adventure and suspense to the intricately detailed historical drama.”

  —RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4½ STARS, TOP PICK! FOR THE ILLUSIONIST’S APPRENTICE

  “Prepare to be amazed by The Illusionist’s Apprentice. This novel will have your pulse pounding and your mind racing to keep up with reversals, betrayals, and surprises from the first page to the last. Like her characters, Cambron works magic so compelling and persuasive, she deserves a standing ovation.”

  —GREER MACALLISTER, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE MAGICIAN’S LIE AND GIRL IN DISGUISE

  “With rich descriptions, attention to detail, mesmerizing characters, and an understated current of faith, this work evokes writers such as Kim Vogel Sawyer, Francine Rivers, and Sara Gruen.”

  —LIBRARY JOURNAL, STARRED REVIEW, FOR THE RINGMASTER’S WIFE

  “Historical fiction lovers will adore this novel! The Ringmaster’s Wife features two rich love stories and a glimpse into our nation’s live entertainment history. Highly recommended!”

  —USA TODAY, HAPPY EVER AFTER

  “Cambron takes a real person, Mable Ringling, and breathes fictional life into her while staying true to what is known about this compelling woman. The novel is an intriguing look into circus life in the 1920s . . . but the author’s gift for writing beautifully crafted sentences will draw readers into the story and the fascinating world of the circus.”

  —RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4 STARS, FOR THE RINGMASTER’S WIFE

  “Cambron vividly depicts circus life during the 1920s. With a strong supporting cast of friends and family—including a nemesis or two—the women experience heartbreak, loss, hope, and triumph, all set against the colorful backdrop of the ‘Greatest Show on Earth.’”

  —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, FOR THE RINGMASTER’S WIFE

  “A novel that is at once captivating, deeply poignant, and swirling with exquisite historical details of a bygone world, The Ringmaster’s Wife will escort readers into the center ring, with its bright lights, exotic animals, and a dazzling performance that can only be described as the Greatest Show on Earth!”

  —FAMILY FICTION

  “In true Kristy Cambron fashion, The Ringmaster’s Wife is packed with emotional depth and characters who charm their way into your heart within the first pages. Engaging and poignant, this is a must-read!”

  —MELISSA TAGG, AUTHOR OF FROM THE START AND LIKE NEVER BEFORE

  “A soaring love story! Vibrant with the glamour and awe that flourished under the Big Top in the 1920s, The Ringmaster’s Wife invites the reader to meet the very people whose unique lives brought the Greatest Show on Earth down those rattling tracks.”

  —JOANNE BISCHOF, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE LADY AND THE LIONHEART

  “The second installment of Cambron’s Hidden Masterpiece series is as stunning as the first. Though heartbreaking in many places, this novel never fails to show hope despite dire circumstances. God’s love shines even in the dark.”

  —RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4½ STARS, TOP PICK! FOR A SPARROW IN TEREZIN

  “In her second book, the author again interweaves a story from the present with a tale from the past. Both Sera and Kája must find courage to battle for a future against impossible circumstances.”

  —CBA RETAILERS + RESOURCES, FOR A SPARROW IN TEREZIN

  “Fans of the author’s first book will gravitate to this tale of the power of faith and love to cope with impossible situations.”

  —LIBRARY JOURNAL, STARRED REVIEW, FOR A SPARROW IN TEREZIN

  “Well-researched yet heartbreaking scenes shed light on the horrors of concentration camps, as well as the contrasting beauty behind the prisoners’ artwork.”

  —RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4½ STARS, TOP PICK! FOR THE BUTTERFLY AND THE VIOLIN

  “Cambron expertly weaves together multiple plotlines, time lines, and perspectives to produce a poignant tale of the power of love and faith in difficult circumstances. Those interested in stories of survival and the Holocaust, such as Elie Wiesel’s ’Night,’ will want to read.”

  —LIBRARY JOURNAL, FOR THE BUTTERFLY AND THE VIOLIN

  BOOKS BY KRISTY CAMBRON

  The Ringmaster’s Wife

  The Illusionist’s Apprentice

  THE HIDDEN MASTERPIECE NOVELS

  The Butterfly and the Violin

  A Sparrow in Terezin

  The Lost Castle

  © 2018 by Kristy Cambron

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

  Published in association with Books & Such Literary Management, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, California 95409–5370, www.booksandsuch.com.

  Interior design: Mallory Collins

  Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ ThomasNelson.com.

  Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by perm
ission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

  One line quoted from the song “Blackbird”; lyrics written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, released in 1968 on The Beatles album. Copyright owned by Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

  Brief quotation from Paul Verlaine’s poem “Chanson d’automne” (“Autumn Song”) in chapter 21, published in his first collection Poèmes saturniens in 1866.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Cambron, Kristy, author.

  Title: The lost castle / Kristy Cambron.

  Description: Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2018. | Series: A split-time romance

  Epub Edition January 2018 ISBN 9780718095475

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017038971 | ISBN 9780718095468 (softcover)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Christian fiction. | Love stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3603.A4468 L67 2018 | DDC 813/.6--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017038971

  Printed in the United States of America

  18 19 20 21 22 LSC 5 4 3 2 1

  For Margaret and Juanita Maxine,

  with fairy-tale love, for unlocking the legacy

  of childhood stories in my life.

  If I’m honest, I have to tell you I still read fairy tales, and I like them best of all.

  —AUDREY HEPBURN

  CONTENTS

  Praise

  Books by Kristy Cambron

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Discussion Questions

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls.

  —ISAIAH 58:12

  PRESENT DAY

  LES TROIS-MOUTIERS

  LOIRE VALLEY, FRANCE

  Crumbling walls were rare, beautiful things.

  They could display vulnerabilities without shame, for they’d already proven their worth in surviving generations-deep fractures and a multitude of fallen stones.

  Ellie held her breath as Quinn rowed their dory along the back of the moat surrounding the castle ruins. Her first full view in a clearing of weathered stone, night sky, and moon glow unimpeded by the thicket of trees. Save for a bird’s distant cry and the delicate ripple of the oars cutting through still water, the forest, too, appeared hushed. Maybe even in league with their plan.

  To be struck down so—she hadn’t expected it, even when she’d found herself face-to-face with the object of her quest. She edged up in her seat, kneeling in the bow. The dory wavered with the instinctive move. The only way to catch herself was to grip the side, digging her nails into weathered wood and peeling paint as she stared headlong into the storybook scene.

  Moonlight illuminated castle walls.

  Ghostly ruins took shape before her eyes, forms cutting through the mist and rising against the backdrop of trees. A shiver commanded attention as the chill of a night breeze swept along Ellie’s skin, dancing wavy locks of ebony against her cheek. She brushed them back without care.

  Quinn held the oars out in the water, using the drag to slow them, the dory bobbing like a cork on the surface. They drifted there for a moment, quiet in the shadow of what the locals called The Sleeping Beauty. Château des Doux-Rêves—the castle of sweet dreams.

  “There she is,” he whispered, his Dubliner upbringing still managing to shadow even the few words spoken between them.

  “No wonder they call her The Sleeping Beauty. Now that I see her . . . She’s every bit of both, don’t you think?”

  A whisper of stories, hushed for generations, drew Ellie like a string had been tethered to her heart. Enough that she could focus on the silence of the place, as if the hallowed walls and tumbled stones had a secret language all their own. What remained was long buried—ivy-covered stone, hemmed in by scrub trees and underbrush that had faded from green in the last of summer’s days and now burned with the height of autumn’s gold. Roofless bones spread from foundation to sky in crumbling turrets and an impressive tower that slept six stories high. Arched doorways and intricately carved filigree window frames were frosted under shades of white-blue light, working together to cut a form like lace had been punched into the ink sky.

  She’d convince Quinn somehow. Trek back through the woods on foot if she had to. Anything to find the story buried in that place.

  Ellie shifted her gaze. The view, previously concealed from behind the castle, opened up to a clearing—a valley hidden by the grove of trees. She stared at a sight she’d seen before.

  The rock wall . . . rounded arch and the opening for a gate that was now missing . . . arbor rows spread out behind in a vineyard rich with the harvest to come. Though time-weathered and now buried under thicket and thorn, this place was familiar; an ethereal memory she hadn’t lived herself, but one that remained etched in her mind nonetheless.

  A forgotten photo had been taken there in the summer of 1944. The very place her grandmother had once stood.

  The scene where her own story had begun.

  ONE

  JULY 14, 1789

  LES TROIS-MOUTIERS

  LOIRE VALLEY, FRANCE

  The letter recounted devastating news: Baron le Roux had been shot dead.

  He’d been discovered facedown in the cobblestone street outside Saint-Lazare, his grown son, too, laid out beside him as wheat barns burned in the background.

  Aveline Sainte-Moreau abandoned her mother’s instruction on the strict propriety of a lady’s posture for the first time in her life, sagging her ball gown in a mass of satin and panniers crumpled against the stair rail. She fused her gloved palm in a white-knuckled grip around a scrolled iron spindle, holding fast, tears rolling free from her lashes, her breaths hollow and shaky as the full weight of her sister’s letter washed over her.

  Reports out of Paris were far worse than anyone had imagined. Closer too, when names put to the dead were among those of their family’s most intimate acquaintance since childhood. How could it be that a noble rank of chevalier, the legacy of a baron, and his only son—Gérard, Aveline’s own brother-in-law—was thriving one day and simply wiped from existence in the next?

  “What of Faubourg Saint-Honoré?”

  She scanned Félicité’s letter, searching for mention of the section of Paris in which her own family held residence. Her heart thumped, turning flip-flops beneath the bodice of her gown.

  No matter the contents or consequences, even if her world would come crashing down in the span of a single missive, Aveline could not deny herself the penned words. Were her father and sister out of danger? And what of their home? And the friends whose lives were in possible jeopardy but streets away from the Le Roux estat
e?

  Baron Le Roux’s manor has been felled by fire, the family routed with nothing but the clothes on their backs. An assemblage of armed men gathered at the gate bordering the clergy land at Saint-Lazare. Rumor had circulated that they hoarded wheat, salt, and other food supplies, and the people set out to plunder. I know you do not wish to hear of these grievous circumstances, given your sympathies for the rabble—but you must. Father was most aghast when he learned what you’d done. The story of the mysterious lady with the violets is all over court, and he had much to cover on your behalf. Though your name was saved from discovery, thus is the evidence that your sympathies were most ill placed.

  We hear tell the baroness and her daughters have been detained in the city. Where and for what purpose we do not yet know. I write these words now only because I stayed with Father and we saw the flames illuminate the night sky. The rabble took torches to the baron’s house and wheat barns, burning them to the foundation. All that remains now are blankets of ash and earth mounded over for fresh graves.

  I’d hoped to rendezvous with my dear Gérard for your impending nuptials, but now, all is lost. He left to defend his father’s home and did not return. Rest assured, dear sister—Father and I have not been assailed.

  We are safe . . . but hopelessly broken.

  Aveline stopped, running her gloved fingertip over a misshapen circle that blotted the last letters inked on the line. One of her sister’s tears?

  She squeezed her eyes shut on a sharp intake of breath, daring to imagine the horror and almost immediately wishing that she hadn’t when the image of lifeless bodies and burning estates flashed through her mind. “God save their souls.”

  Desperate for a reprieve from the brutality on the page—and her sister’s none-too-gentle reproach of the ill-placement of her sympathies—Aveline turned her gaze to the view looking out from one of the second-story windows of the Château des Doux-Rêves.

  The last of evening’s light toyed with the twilight sky, sifting shadows through the great canopy of trees that hemmed them in on all sides. A swan danced through the circular moat below, disturbing the water in a rippled kiss along the castle’s outer walls. Horses nickered from the nearby carriage house, jovial and quite unaware that anything was amiss in their part of the world. Their innocent melody of clip-clops and neighs drifted through the air as carriages descended upon the road to the front gate.

 
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