Sepulchre - Kate Mosse

Sepulchre, the sequel to Labyrinth (which I read and reviewed), follows two different characters in two different time periods, as did Labyrinth. Léonie Vernier is seventeen years old and living in Paris in October 1891 when she accompanies her beloved brother, Anatole, to visit their widowed aunt in the small mountain town of Rennes-les-Bains. During her stay, Léonie finds out that the Domaine de la Cade, her aunt's estate, has been the subject of local superstitions for years; Léonie studies these superstitions, leading her to a pack of eerie tarot cards. In her explorations of the Domaine de la Cade, Léonie makes another discovery--a Visigoth sepulchre. The sepulchre and the tarot cards involve Léonie in the deepest secrets of the estate, eventually leading to a dramatic conflict and a difficult choice for Léonie. Meredith Martin, on the other hand, arrives in Rennes-les-Bains in 2007, checking into an old hotel, the Domaine de la Cade. After a coincidental encounter leads her to a tarot reading, Meredith becomes more entrenched in the mysteries and old superstitions of the area, becoming involved in her own conflict and finally discovering what ties her and Léonie together.

The fact that I'm writing this review directly after finishing Sepulchre at about 1:30 in the morning should give you a little bit of a clue as to how I felt about this book. While Sepulchre is rather hefty (565 pages), I flew through it, beginning just before bed yesterday and finishing about twenty minutes ago. As in Labyrinth, the sections alternate between the two characters. Since the conflict was resolved at the end of Labyrinth, I really had no clue what this book was going to be about, and how it was going to tie in with the first. While the two foremost characters are entirely new, several reappear. This added to the suspense of the story for me--every time someone I recognized entered the plot, it made me even more eager to find out what would happen next.

While I found Sepulchre more enjoyable for having read Labyrinth, I have to think that one could read either one alone and still find them understandable and satisfactory--that is, there are not facts laid out in Labyrinth that are necessary to the reading of Sepulchre. This and the relatively unrelated central conflicts of the two books makes me wonder how Mosse will tie everything together, or even if she will, in the last book of the trilogy. While I've looked on Mosse's website, the only information I can find on the last book is that it will be called Citadel and will be published in the UK in Fall 2010. In fact, the last time Ms. Mosse updated her blog was March 7, 2009. I suppose that until an American release date is published, I will simply have to wait...and a long wait it will be. In the meanwhile, I urge any of you in the UK to read both Labyrinth and Sepulchre before Citadel comes out, and then find a copy of it--just don't tell me the ending!