Editorial Book Review: Julien’s Terror by Laura Rahme

This week’s review turns to Revolutionary France,
where Laura Rahme’s "Julien’s Terror" explores the enduring psychological cost of violence long after the guillotine has fallen silent. Rather than focusing on political spectacle, the novel examines fear as something inherited and internalised, carried forward by those who survive. The following review considers how Rahme approaches trauma, memory, and moral collapse, and why the novel’s scope extends far beyond its titular character.

***

In “Julien’s Terror”, Laura Rahme has written a novel that does far more than explore fear—it examines its origins and its consequences. Set against the moral collapse of Revolutionary France, this is a psychological historical novel that understands terror not as a single moment of violence, but as something slow, corrosive, and enduring. It is a book concerned with what history leaves behind, and with the quiet devastation borne by those who survive it.

From the opening pages, the prose establishes a grave and measured tone. The cities and landscapes of France are rendered with care and precision. Nantes is not merely a setting but a presence in its own right, its streets heavy with memory and complicity. The Loire, in particular, functions as a silent witness—absorbing what human voices cannot contain. This is historical fiction that treats place with seriousness, recognising that geography itself can carry moral weight.

The Terror is depicted with notable restraint. There is no reliance on spectacle or excess. Instead, violence unfolds through routine and authority: orders issued, bodies processed, dignity systematically stripped away. Rahme conveys with chilling clarity how cruelty becomes acceptable when ideology overrides conscience and obedience is rewarded. The effect is deeply unsettling precisely because it feels so plausible.

Especially powerful are the scenes involving Louis-Charles, the lost Dauphin. Rahme resists turning him into a political symbol or sentimental figure. He is presented, simply and devastatingly, as a neglected child whose physical and emotional decline occurs in isolation and silence. His fear of light, his inability to endure the outside world, and his gradual withdrawal from life are rendered without embellishment. These passages are among the novel’s most affecting, reminding the reader that some of the Revolution’s worst crimes took place away from crowds and guillotines, hidden behind locked doors.

The novel draws an illuminating parallel between the suffering of Louis-Charles and that of Marguerite Lafolye. Marguerite’s ordeal is defined by movement—flight, concealment, survival—while the Dauphin’s is marked by stillness and confinement. Marguerite is repeatedly told that his fate is worse, and this knowledge becomes an additional burden rather than a consolation. The comparison does not diminish her trauma; it deepens it. In doing so, the novel avoids simplistic hierarchies of suffering and instead demonstrates how deprivation and abandonment can be as destructive as overt violence.

The sections set in the underground caves of the Vendée are among the most quietly effective in the novel. Beneath a country in turmoil, the earth becomes a place of refuge. These hidden chambers, cold and with only a sliver of light, offer a fragile form of safety where silence is essential, and existence itself feels provisional. Life persists underground while destruction unfolds above it. Rahme handles these passages with restraint, allowing the physical conditions to speak for themselves and reinforcing the sense of a population forced to erase itself to endure.

Although the novel bears Julien’s name, its narrative scope extends well beyond a single viewpoint. Julien’s journey—from a troubled childhood in Paris to relative stability under Napoleon—provides an important structural thread, but the novel resists a narrow, protagonist-centred focus. Instead, it unfolds as a broader examination of shared trauma. Marguerite, in particular, emerges as a central moral presence. Her silences, memories, and unresolved past shape the emotional heart of the book, transforming it into a meditation on survival, identity, and inherited pain.

What distinguishes "Julien’s Terror" is its psychological acuity. Rahme understands that trauma does not end when danger recedes. It reappears in memory, in sound, and in obsession. The recurring motif of a crying child heard at night is used sparingly yet effectively, underscoring how the past continues to intrude upon the present. Terror, in this novel, is not confined to prisons or battlefields; it persists in domestic spaces and private thought.

The integration of Breton folklore adds an additional layer without undermining the novel’s historical grounding. These elements function less as supernatural interventions than as expressions of belief and fear when rational explanation fails. They enrich the atmosphere while remaining subordinate to emotional truth.

Rahme also demonstrates notable moral restraint. There are no easy villains and no reassuring resolutions. Revolutionaries and royalists alike are capable of cruelty, and ideals are shown to be dangerously malleable when separated from compassion. Yet the novel never descends into cynicism. Acts of loyalty and protection are given their due weight, even when history itself offers no reward.

“Julien’s Terror” is not an easy or hurried read. It demands attention and emotional engagement, but those willing to give it both will find a novel of depth, seriousness, and quiet power—one that treats its subject with respect and lingers in the mind long after the final page.

Review by Mary Anne Yarde

Yarde Book Promotions

Check out the blurb:

In this chilling psychological tale set in revolutionary France, a young couple confront their darkest fears. Looming above them, between healing and oblivion, lies the French Republic's most shocking secret.

FRANCE, 1794 - The Reign of Terror

Julien d'Aureville, a young boy from a broken home in Paris, meets a fugitive aristocrat who changes his life. As the Terror subsides and Napoleon rises to power, Julien's fortunes improve.

Then he meets the mysterious Marguerite.

Upon her marriage to Julien, Marguerite Lafolye has all a Parisian woman could ever wish. Yet something is not quite right.

Is Marguerite hiding a dark secret?

When she attempts to see into Marguerite, even the celebrated fortuneteller, Marie Anne Lenormand, cannot read her cards.

From bourgeois Paris to the canals of Napoleon's Venice, Marguerite seems to be living a lie. Who is she really? What drives her obsession with the late Dauphin, Louis-Charles, son of Marie-Antoinette?

Could the answer lie in a memory - in Nantes' orphanage, or in the hidden undergound caves of war-torn Vendée, or else in the secret refuge of Gralas Forest, deep in Western France?

Or could the answer be right here, in Paris, within the forbidding walls of the Temple Prison that Napoleon threatens to destroy, and where the Dauphin tragically perished.

Julien’s Terror by Laura Rahme comes highly recommended for readers of historical fiction who value psychological depth and moral complexity. The novel is available in paperback, on #Kindle, and through #KindleUnlimited. You can pick up your copy HERE.

Laura Rahme was born in Dakar, Senegal where she spent her early childhood. Dakar's poverty and raw beauty left a strong impression on Laura. Deeply inspired by her Lebanese, French and Vietnamese heritage, she has a passion for covering historical and cultural ground in her writing. Laura holds honours degrees in Engineering and Psychology. Her non-writing career has seen her in the role of web developer, analyst programmer, business analyst and Agile manager. She lives in Brittany, France.

Website
Facebook
Instagram