We could have lost the entirety of one of the two timelines and the story would not have suffered from it at all. She also judged the Orange/Scotsman Young Communicators Award in May 2002. It took me a long time to get past the first part of the book (mainly because of all the not so important descriptions of everything), but after that an amazing and mysterious story was created, which was what I expected when I started to read the book. I am aware. We could have lost the entirety of one of the two timelines and the story would not have suffered from it at all. I think it's the laziest deus ex machina anybody can use as a way of patching over massive plot holes without having to do any actual work to wrap everything up nicely. In 1209, newly married Alas is living in Carcassonne, a stronghold of Cathars who have been declared heretical by the Church. Q. Q. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked in publishing. She is well-known for writing Labyrinth which has been translated into more than thirty-seven languages. Want to know what people are actually reading right now? Many of us are also fascinated by the way that history becomes myth, myth becomes legend. While this one doesn't go into my favorite theory, it's such a page turner. Ultimately the story becomes a quest for the Holy Grail. 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. See guidelines for writing about novels. Rather, she attempts to differentiate Labyrinthfrom the likes of The Da Vinci Code(and there are undoubtedly a huge number of similarities) by invoking the supernatural without adequate explanation. Aliceeventually realises that, like Alais, her destiny is inseparable from that of the Grail. The series follows two womenmedieval 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. The Best Books to Get Your Finances in Order, Cook a Soul Food Holiday Meal With Rosie Mayes. means that everyones realised thatLabyrinth is a long term project, the result of many years work, and its not come up at all. Labyrinth is an archaeological mystery English-language novel written by Kate Mosse set both in the Middle Ages and present-day France. What the success of The Da Vinci Code shows is that the reading public has an appetite for such stories mixing history, myth and mystery, which can only be good for authors and good for reading. In Labyrinth Jennifer Connolly plays Sarah, a teenager with a vivid imagination and unhappy home life who accidentally wishes her baby brother away to the Goblin King's realm, where she's forced. 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). $15 for 3 months. The Languedoc truly is Cathar Country. Labyrinth is an archaeological mystery English-language novel written by Kate Mosse set both in the Middle Ages and present-day France. 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. Kate Mosse is an author and broadcaster. This is split between early 13th century France at the time of the Cathars and France in 2005; the main protagonists being Alais in 1205 and Alice in 2005 (Of course there isn't a link of any sort; familial, psychic or anything!!!!) Akashic lends a hand with Lean on Me by Bill Withers, illus. After watching Labyrinth, you may actually know less." [4][5] Scott Free and Tandem previously collaborated on the miniseries The Pillars of the Earth. Mosse also did this thing where she introduced so many characters that, every time they weren't actively on page, she just forgot that they existed? First off - this book is too damn long. I think that all of us, men and women alike, are attracted to epic stories, stories that take us away from the mundane and the everyday, into the big subjects, the big emotions. This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers. The Book Lovers' Appreciation Society: Breast Cancer Care Short Story Collection. I was a little worried people might think I was jumping on the bandwagon, but the sheer volume of research (and length of the book!) 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, Which brings us to the second problem - the pacing. Eight hundred years ago, on the night before a brutal civil war ripped apart Languedoc, three books were entrusted to Alas, a young herbalist and healer, the daughter of the steward of Carcassona. 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. Labyrinth is distributed worldwide by Tandem. In the present, another woman sees the find as a means to the political power she craves; while a man who has great power will kill to destroy all traces of the discovery and everyone who stands in his way. Alice later discovers that she is Alas's descendant. I would love to give it five stars, but because of the first part I must give it four. In the end, the human heart hasnt changed so very much over the centuries, despite variations in experience, opportunity and expectation (particularly for women!). Why do you think this historical episode is so little known today? The Crusade conducted against the Cathars by the northern French was very brutal and lasted for decades. Do you think they were too much, not enough or just right? The book, for me, really developted in the last 300 pages. Now let's talk about the characters. July 2005. the Labyrinth, the cave, the ring, the grail, etc.) Also - and I realise that this is my personal issue more than anything else - but I really, really hate it when authors writing about a setting that isn't their mother tongue throw in sentences in the setting's original language to show off how much research they've done. Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Labyrinth might be described as the thinking woman's summer reading, chick lit with A levels for those with only a passing interest in . Condition is "Very Good". Do you think it is important that, after the prologue, Kate starts the novel proper with 10 chapters set in the medieval past? The first obviously Holy Grail story is Chrtien de Troyes Le Conte du Graal (Perceval) in the mid-1170s (although, in common with the custom of the time, he credited his patron for having told him the story in the first instance); this was followed shortly afterwards by a poem by Robert de Boron, Joseph of Arimathea, then, most significantly, the great Parzival, by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach, in 1200, which put the story on the map for good! Sixteen years ago, my husband and I bought a tiny, stone house in the shadow of the medieval walls of the Cit of Carcassonne in the Languedoc, southwest France, about two hours drive from the Pyrenees. The historical nature of the novel is also executed well, with some brilliant and vivid descriptions of life in Carcassonne during the 1200s. On one of the skeletons she finds a labyrinth-engraved ring which she takes. [4] The set created for the series has been kept as a permanent structure at the studio. It came back to U.S. television as a four-hour-long mini-series on SyFy on Wednesday, December 23, 2015. However, the moment I started reading, I realised that despite the obvious similarities with Labyrinthand I was sure readers who liked one will like the other tooin fact the two novels were actually significantly different in tone, atmosphere, style, scope and intention. . A publisher for many years, she is also cofounder and chair of the board of the prestigious Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize). Puzzled by the labyrinth symbol . It is now Alas Pelletier, who we now know was the woman holding the book out to Alice, lying in a bed with her husband beside her. $8.00. The Romance Books Kristine Swartz Is Loving Right Now, Great Picture Books To Capture the Spirit of St. Patricks Day, Browse All Our Lists, Essays, and Interviews, Gripping Novels for Fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid. I also thought it was strange to see Mosse's next book looks & sounds identical to this one. The first synopsis and official images have gone. The chapters in the past are much better than the ones in the present because things actually do happen and the history of the Cathars & daily castle life in the 1200s is interesting. Review: Labyrinth, by Kate Mosse. The narratives are tied together by the unravelling of the mysteries of the 'true' Grail, which is written and bound in three volumes, and the symbol of the labyrinth. Instead, the double narrative of modern versus medieval offers only confusion to the reader. I think it's lazy, sloppy, and thoroughly uninteresting, and since in this book everything else was also uninteresting, that was really just the straw that broke the camels' back. She captured the desperation, terror and subsequent sadness of the inhabitants of that region and time. Buy HD $2.99 More purchase options 2. I'm all about mysterious/secret, lesser-known histories. 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! 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 first time I went to Carcassonne, November 1989, I was six months pregnant with my first child and it was cold and wet and dismal. The Cathars were Christian Dualists who believed in a universe of equal and opposing forces, permanently and finely balanced: light versus dark, good versus evil. Labyrinth is a historical television miniseries based on the 2005 novel of the same name by Kate Mosse. Puzzled by the words carved inside the chamber and the representation of a labyrinth, she finds an exact representation of it on the underside of the ring she found in the cave. Who is Kate Mosse? The two stories occur in a shared geography and intertwine. - Library Journal. Q. I visited many medieval re-enactment events, both in England and in southwest France, watching Jousts and seeing how battles were fought. Which brings us to the second problem - the pacing. Fortunately, my children share my enthusiasm for the medieval past, so were always happy to come with me. have a lot to answer for. Clearly it involved the Grail and a labyrinth symbol, and yes there were some unidentified skeletons in a cave. Brought vividly to life by Louise Brealey's narration, this new, unabridged audiobook also includes extra content read by the author, Kate Mosse. It's 7oo pages, and needed to be brutally edited down. Kate Mosse is a No 1 international bestselling novelist, playwright and non fiction writer, best known for her multi-million Languedoc Trilogy - Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel - and for her Gothic Fiction, including The Winter Ghosts and The Taxidermist's Daughter, which she is adapting for film & stage. The quote on the back of the paperback edition from the Kirkus Review really says it all: A quickly paced adventure that wears its considerable learning lightly and of higher literary quality than The Da Vinci Code, to which it will inevitably be compared. And yet Labyrinth goes more than a few steps further, not just adding new and original twists to the myth of the grail, but adding a new depth and level that hasnt been seen before. Labyrinth by Kate Mosse Orion 9.99, pp527. Written by the British literary insider who co-founded the prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction, this is a quickly paced adventure that wears its considerable learning lightlyand of higher literary quality than The Da Vinci Code, to which it will inevitably be compared. In the prologue Kate gives glimpses several leading characters. The background of the 13th century is the persecution of the Cathars in Languedoc; in the 20th century it is an archealogical dig in the same area. What lies at the heart of Labyrinth, however, is not a Christian Grail at all, but rather something far older that belongs to all religions and none. She is also one of the regular judges of the Financial Times/Arts & Business Sponsor of the Year Awards and has judged many writing competitions for adults and children. LABYRINTH is a two-part miniseries in which a modern woman finds her destiny linked with that of a 13th century ancestor and the Holy Grail. To my disappointment, I turned out not to be a natural swordswoman . Kate Mosse is skilful in the creation of her characters and it is primarily this that drives the novel, despite the confused plot. - Publishers Weekly. 20 Oct 1961 -. The book is pretty fast paced and the one big compliment I can give to Ms. Mosse is that you can see how much she has come to love the region of Languedoc and its history. From 19982001, Kate was Deputy Director of Chichester Festival Theatre in West Sussex, the first woman ever to hold the position. Q. Source: Kate Mosse on Wikipedia. The Crusaders razed to the ground any dwellings known to have harboured Cathars and burnt all copies of the New Testament in the local language, Oc or Occitan (from which the region gets its name). [4], Variety reported in March 2011 that Ridley Scott was developing a television adaptation of Labyrinth. In the first instalment of a revealing two-part interview, Kate discusses her involvement in the Women's Prize for Fiction (this year won by Maggie O'Farrell for Hamnet), her love of the. She has also written three works of non-fiction, four plays, contributed essays and introductions to classic novels and collections. Needless to say, Dan Browns Infernois already on my pre-order list! Dispatched with Royal Mail 2nd Class. It certainly contains all of the elements that you would ask for in a thriller mystery, deception, and the inevitable confrontation with death. I wanted the girls to have the swords, rather than find themselves always waiting to be rescued. Yet, there were several loose ends. A German-South African co-production, the two-part series was filmed on location in the medieval town of Carcassonne in southwest France and Cape Town, South Africa. Winstead plays the eponymous assassin who realizes it's time to get out of the game after she inadvertently kills a man in front of his daughter. Im Amlie, I love books and reading, and I also love talking about them. All from $11.18 Used Books from $11.18 Like some of the other reviews, there were times I liked the story and there were other times where I was just down right bored. Labyrinth Languedoc Trilogy (Series) Book 1 Kate Mosse Author (2006) The Library Book Anita Anand Contributor Ann Cleeves Contributor (2012) Citadel Kate Mosse Author (2014) The Taxidermist's Daughter Kate Mosse Author Michelle Ford Narrator (2016) We Need to Talk About Kevin Serpent's Tail Classics (Series) Lionel Shriver Author And, truly, after 700 pages, the premise remained the only thing that made this book publishable. ISBN-10: 0752876708. Labyrinth is, in some ways, my love letter to Carcassonneeven though it took me some to realise what I wanted to writeand the mountains, hills, rocks, woods are as much characters in the story as the people, real and imagined. Q. Now, by 2006, the glories and horrors of the regions medieval past are honoured everywhere. 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. (For example, Raymond-Roger Trencavel, Agns de Montpellier, Simon de Montfort and others.) 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. Kate Mosse is an international bestselling author with sales of more than five million copies in 42 languages. 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