October 16, 2018

Live the Adventure of the Courageous Huguenots in St. Bartholomew's Eve from Heirloom Audio {Product Review}

Once again, I am thrilled to be able to review another amazing audiodrama from Heirloom Audio! This story brought to life a time in history I know every little about and it made me eager to search our more information about the time period. Unlike some of the other Heirloom Audio productions, the theme of this particular story really stuck with me and applied to my life right away. So I encourage you to stick around and read more about the latest release based on a novel by G.A. Henty...St. Bartholomew's Eve!

About the Product

The newest release from Heirloom Audio is St. Barthlomew’s Eve, another audio drama based on a novel by G.A. Henty. This particular audiodrama takes place in France during the 1500’s. This was a time when the Roman Catholic church was doing everything in its power to stamp out the Protestant reformation, and nowhere was that as evident as it was on St. Bartholomew's Eve 1592 when thousands upon thousands of French Protestants (ie. The Huguenots) were so brutally massacred in Paris and then surrounding cities. It is the days prior to this event that the majority of the audiodrama takes place. 

The story follows a 16 year old English boy named Phillip who travels to France to visit his cousin’s family in hopes to be able to play a part in The Huguenot rebellion. Through the course of the story, he travels with the Huguenot army in France as it seeks to free many cities with fellow Protestants under the thumbs of Catholic leaders. There are many battles, and Phillip himself has to decide to commit 100% to the cause reminding himself whether he should obey the King of France or the King of Kings.
 
The 2CD audio drama is an exciting new way to learn history as your family experiences this 2+ hours of an “active listening audio adventure”. The vocal talents of well known award winning actors and actress make up the cast, including Brian Blessed, Elizabeth Counsell, David Shaw-Parker, Brian Deacon, Andy Harrison, and Hugo Docking! Your family will be able to understand more about this critical time in history, while enjoying the adventure!

Our Thoughts on the Product

One of the main reasons that I really loved this audiodrama was because it covered an event I knew absolutely NOTHING about. As I listened, I became more enthralled with the story, and knew I had to learn more. What a DREADFUL time to be someone NOT practicing Catholicism! I knew about the Spanish Inquisition, but this was just as bad, if not worse! It is so hard to believe that on St. Bartholomew’s Eve and the subsequent weeks ahead, more than 25,000 French Protestants were killed!
 
The story really opened my family’s eyes even more to the blessing we have to worship freely today. And it really puts even more emphasis on the level of faith we have—while the story itself asks the characters “Do we obey the King of France or the King of Kings?”, as a Christian we could adapt that to our own situations. It definitely was something we took from the story and applied immediately. Especially when we just started working on memorizing a scripture which matches it well ("choose this day whom you will serve...but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord")

The boys favorite parts were in three places—first, they loved the little crippled boy, especially when he was trying to participate in the storming of the chateau; second, they were fascinated with the act of killing and skinning all the cattle to put in front of the chateau’s gates (ew!!); third, they loved it when Phillip shot his pistols and then had two more attached by rope (?) which he surprised everyone with. 

What is such a coincidence is that this year in history, we are actually going to study the story of The Huguenots in more detail as our curriculum covers the Middle Ages. It’s so weird to think that this study coincides with us having this audio drama about the very event. This is why these audio dramas are so awesome—they allow you to tie them into your normal studies to give your history even more mmmfff and excitement! 

Once again, we give this product 5 stars just as we did the others. I’m so thankful that we have a full collection to draw on when we are studying history. They are amazing stories and are so professionally done, other audio dramas are rather blah. LOL

Want to Know More?

You just read my review of St. Bartholomew's Eve, the latest audio drama from Heirloom Audio. Make sure you pop over and visit some other crew members to get their take on this product too!
St. Bartholomew's Eve {Heirloom Audio Reviews}
*****


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