After Alice happens upon a cave containing skeletons and an altar, whilst on an archeological dig in the French Pyrenees, she starts in motion a series of events that pose a threat to the security and secrecy of the Grail. Commercial/literary, thriller/adventure, historical/contemporary, all that most authors want is for our novels to find their way into the hands of readers wholl appreciate our work. The text itself features many Occitan and French quotes. Aliceeventually realises that, like Alais, her destiny is inseparable from that of the Grail. Alice, a volunteer at a French . I'm all about mysterious/secret, lesser-known histories. Do you think it is important that, after the prologue, Kate starts the novel proper with 10 chapters set in the medieval past? I love the transition between the two time periods. Author: Kate Mosse. The only questions worth asking are: Does the novel make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end? She is the author of several of the Orange Prize education initiatives and chaired the judging panel for Orange Futuresa promotion supporting the work of women novelists aged 35 and under. Aleksandar Hemon's characters are romantics. The story of Alais in the 1200s invoked some wonderful characters, and Alais herself was a heroine of true individuality and strength. Rusty's Ghost Engine (also known as. Jinky Spring). Mosse somehow managed to make a 700-page epic adventure novel about the quest for the true secret of the Holy Grail utterly, completely pointless. The Da Vinci Code is based on the familiar Christian Grail legends of the 12th centurypoets such as Chrtien de Troyes, Robert de Boron and the great German writer, Wolfram von Eschenbach. In the Pyrenees mountains near Carcassonne, Alice, a volunteer at an archaeological dig, stumbles into a cave and makes a startling discovery-two. Kates first novel, Eskimo Kissing, was published to great acclaim in 1996, followed in 1998 by an exciting, bio-tech time-travel thriller, Crucifix Lane. by Kate Mosse Book three in the Languedoc trilogy It's 1942, and in Nazi-occupied France, Sandrine - a brave and vivacious nineteen-year-old - is drawn into 'Citadel', a Resistance group in Carcassonne comprised of ordinary women who are prepared to risk everything to fight for what is right. I explored both the Cit and the surrounding countryside, realising straight away that the landscape of southwest France was the landscape of my imagination. $ 4.49 - $ 4.79. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Kate was named European Woman of Achievement for Contribution to the Arts in 2000. 4 Answers. But she doesnt tell you who is who, which to sympathise with and which to condemn. [5] Christopher Smith was signed on to direct. Labyrinth. Because of their Dualist doctrine, the Cathars had no churches or sanctified buildings, they despised the Cross as an instrument of torture, and had no need of relics. It certainly contains all of the elements that you would ask for in a thriller mystery, deception, and the inevitable confrontation with death. The first synopsis and images from LABYRINTH, a mini-series produced by Tony and Ridley Scott that adapts Kate Mosse's bestselling novel. ), adventures, setbacks and triumphsbut Labyrinth is a quest novel rather than a happily-ever-after. (And judging from the letters and emails Ive had so far, there are lots of male readers, as well as female readers, who like the idea of the women doing the swashbuckling!). She has written and presented several programmes for BBC Radio 4 on the arts and sponsorship. A television adaptation of the novel adapted by Adrian Hodges and directed by Christopher Smith was released in 2012. You can opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information anytime. Why has it taken so many different forms over the centuries? But not until the very end was I able to truly understand the point of the plot. It is forbidden to copy anything for publication elsewhere without written permission from the copyright holder. As a medievalist and amateur historian, I was addicted to learning how Mosse laid out this Grail fantasy. The plot abounded in skeletons and . It's utter garbage. I wanted them to be firmly at the centre of their own storysure, theres lots of love (and sex! Now let's talk about the characters. Many of us are also fascinated by the way that history becomes myth, myth becomes legend. Nobody had any emotional growth, nobody went on a journey, nothing happened - and it was all tell not show. Required fields are marked *. When Dr Alice Tanner, who works as a volunteer at the archaeological site of Pic de Soularac, in France, discovers two skeletons in a long-hidden cave in the hillside, she unearths a link with an horrific and brutal past. In medieval times, as today, history is written by the winners, not those who are defeated. Ive always adored adventure storiesfrom Rider Haggards classic novel She and Dumas The Three Musketeers to more modern proponents of the genre such as Wilbur Smiths The Seventh Scroll and Alastair McLeans Ice Station Zebra. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. This pulled at me and repulsed me simultaneously. Although she cannot understand the symbols and diagrams the book contains, Alais knows her destiny lies in protecting their secret, at all costs. Adventure writing is still alive and kicking, its just a matter of definition. Kidnapping, murder, and the search for power drive this plot, as both Alais and Alice fight to the same end. Have you ever felt, like Alice, such an affinity with a place that you seem to know who must have previously lived there and the emotions they enjoyed or endured? However, in the past thirty years and more, French historians, patriots, theologians and poets -Jean Duvernoy, Ren Nelli, Claude Marti, Anne Brenon, Michel Roquebert to name but a fewhave been researching, writing, publishing, reinterpreting the history of the Cathars for the general reader, their way of life, their theology, their poetry and music for modern readers. She captured the desperation, terror and subsequent sadness of the inhabitants of that region and time. - Kirkus Reviews. One journalist called her Wilma Smith! Although I was a little dissapointed by some stinted writing and bad editing, Labyrinth still had me sitting on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what is going on. And the cast, which includes Tom Felton, Sebastian Stan, Katie McGrath, Tony Curran, John Lynch, and others, is large and appealing". Kates new novel, The Taxidermists Daughter is out now. For question 4, how would you challenge the statement. The novel's plot is irresistible. Labyrinth is an archaeological mystery English-language novel written by Kate Mosse set both in the Middle Ages and present-day France. Alice dreams about Alaiss life, allowing Alice to be guided in her own quest to guard the Grail. At some point I acquired the second book in the series and have yet to read it, so A surprising mix of historical fiction, fantasy and ghost story all very well rolled into one intriguing novel. In case youre curious yes, Pride and Prejudice is my favorite book of all time. After already tacklingThe Presidents Hat (see my review here), I decided it was time to wade into the 694 page epic,Labyrinth. Eight hundred years ago, on the night before a brutal civil war ripped apart Languedoc, a book was entrusted to Alais, a young herbalist and healer. Her fiction includes the novels Labyrinth (2005), Sepulchre (2007), The Winter Ghosts (2009), and Citadel (2012), as well as an acclaimed collection of short stories, The Mistletoe Bride & Other Haunting Tales (2013). certain categories of personal information, discloses, sells, or shares certain personal information. Nothing else was any good. There are very few scenes of violence in Kates novel, but those few are extremely severe. Nobody bother reading this book. I felt I belonged in Carcassonne, that it was the right place for me to be. . Did I enjoy Labyrinth by Kate Mosse or not? Now, as crusading armies gather outside the city walls of Carcassonne, it will take a tremendous sacrifice to keep the secret of the labyrinth safe. Id always believed that if there was such a thing as a Grail, its provenance would lie in some much older system of belief than the work of 13th century Christian poetsprobably as far back as Ancient Egypt 2000 BCE, a period of time when there was a prodigious development of a knowledge of mathematics, magic, astronomy, and writing. This page was last edited on 17 October 2022, at 21:16. She is the presenter of BBC4s Readers and Writers Roadshowand guest presents Saturday Review for Radio 4. With Labyrinth, youve had a big popular success in Britain, sales to foreign publishers, a major launch in America, and so on. Adventure Drama Fantasy This mini-series follows two women, medieval Alas Pelletier du Mas (Jessica Brown Findlay), who lives through the Crusades and Cathar massacres in medieval France, and modern-day Alice Tanner (Vanessa Kirby), in their quest to find the Holy Grail. Source: Kate Mosse on Wikipedia. BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfictionbooks that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Books such as The Da Vinci Code play an important part in putting reading right at the heart of things. Yet I do not regret picking it up. "A flawed work, but, given the popularity of Da Vinci Code-type fiction, strongly recommended for public libraries." INTRODUCTIONIn this extraordinary thriller, rich in the atmospheres of medieval and contemporary France, the lives of two women born centuries apart are linked by a common destiny. Sadly, I really did not love this book, and not for want of trying. I read this book some time ago, and have recently been reminded of its sorry existence by the fact that a dramatisation is due to be screened in the not so distant future. Kate and her husband live in West Sussex and Carcasonne, France. In this case historical fiction in the guise of yet another (yawn) grail quest. What I hope is that someone visiting Carcassonne, for example, or any of the key towns mentioned in the novel will be able to use Labyrinth as a guide book! It was incredibly difficult! The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting Tales. Buy HD $2.99 More purchase options 2. It almost always rings false and is always off-putting, and because I notice this in French rather than any other language, the French is almost always just slightly wrong. Labyrinth tells two stories simultaneously: that of 17 year old Alais in 13th century southern France, and that of the academic Alice Tanner in 2005. To get inside Alas skin, I also had a couple of sword fighting lessons what it felt like to wield a sword. Kate has published two non-fiction books: Becoming a Mother, a companion to pregnancy and childbirth (now in its fourth edition), and The House: Behind the Scenes at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, which accompanied the award-winning BBC television fly-on-the-wall documentary series. The Guardian ranked it the number one bestseller for 2006. She was born in 20 October 1961. [1] Alice, a volunteer at a French archaeological excavation, discovers the skeletal remains of two people in a cave, as well as a labyrinth-engraved ring, which attracts the attention of unscrupulous individuals. Labyrinth might be described as the thinking woman's summer reading, chick lit with A levels for those with only a passing interest in . This is where youll see your current point status and your earned rewards. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked in publishing. 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