I urge you to disregard Publisher Weekly’s review of (and other negative reviews of) Kate Mosse’s Sepulchre. This is a worthy successor to to her story, Labyrinthe, that I reviewed a few months ago.
Mosse has a way of creating characters that you care about, both positively and negatively. The villain in this book is one of the most heinous and evil people I have ever read about. I wanted to reach into the pages and rip his heart out. As in her previous story, Mosse has populated Sepulchre with two strong women, Leonie of the 1890’s and Meredith of 2007-10.
Recently my wife and I visited Carcassonne and Rennes-le-Chateau. Mosse captures the essence of that region of France that has attracted the attention of many writers. If you read Labyrinth, The Da Vinci Code or Holy Blood, Holy Grail, you’ll recognize some of the real people and settings. I found the book to be a page turner from page one, and it’s more than 700 pages.
In the British edition, there were topics for book groups to discuss as well as some informational factoids about places and people in the book. Hopefully Berkley included them in their edition.
Your local independent bookstore may have it in stock. They certainly can order it for you if they don’t have a copy.
