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!

Labyrinth - Kate Mosse

Sorry for being gone so long! No, I was not dead, I was not in Antarctica, and I was not attempting to read David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (though I do intend to at some point) or Tolstoy's War and Peace (which I also intend to read; Anna Karenina is one of my favorites). Rather, I was doing schoolwork--to make a long and painful story short, I had to do two semester classes, chemistry and A.P. World History, in a few short weeks. Understandably, I didn't have much free time, but I'm back now, a proper high school senior! How strange.

Had I had the time, I'm quite sure I would've read Labyrinth by Kate Mosse straight through. While it's not a quick read by any means, it is very captivating and suspenseful. Labyrinth follows the story of Alice, a volunteer on an modern archaeological dig, and Alais (the "i" has an umlaut over it, but I can't figure out how to do that on Blogger), a young woman in medieval France. On the dig, Alice discovers a cave with two skeletons, writing on the walls, and the pattern of a labyrinth on the floor. From there, Alice is thrown into what becomes a search for the Holy Grail. Back in 1209, Alais' father asks her, as the Crusaders approach to wipe out the French Cathar "heretics," to help protect an ancient book, one of three that will reveal the secret of the Grail.

The book alternates between Alais and Alice, the chapters becoming shorter and shorter near the climax. This added greatly to the suspense of the book for me. I love when the plot of a book leads me up a giant hill, culminating in one point where I see everything--the "aha!" moment, if you will--and Labyrinth certainly does that. The characters were very well fleshed out as well, though there was one character (Oriane, Alais' sister and one of the baddies) that seemed one-dimensional. Another thing I enjoyed about the book was the depth to which the book was entrenched in history. Labyrinth is often compared with Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, but I don't think that comparison is valid beyond the surface, at least not as I read both books. When reading The Da Vinci Code, I consciously noticed Brown's use of historical fact; my mind would be diverted from the plot momentarily, noticing that he was referring to something that actually happened. In Labyrinth, this was not the case at all. I was immersed in the story the entire time I was reading it, and the fact that the historical background existed did not distract me from the story as it did in The Da Vinci Code.

I greatly enjoyed Labyrinth, and after finishing it, I ordered Sepulchre, the second in the trilogy. I can't wait until it arrives--as Philippa Gregory said, "the past comes to life." History and suspense lover that I am, I couldn't help but love it.