Book review: Sepulchre by Kate Mosse

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Sepulchre by Kate Mosse

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I picked up the Sepulchre audiobook from the bargain bin at the local megachain bookstore because I wanted something to listen to on a cross-country road trip and I didn't want to spend a lot of money.

Let's just say I'm glad I didn't. Spend a lot of money, that is.

As with Mosse's previous novel, Labyrinth, I wanted to like this story. Historical setting juxtaposed against modern setting, with a supernatural-ish link between them: just my cup of tea. As with Labyrinth again, the premise was better than the execution.

17-year-old Léonie Vernier and her older brother Anatole leave their mother behind and flee 1891 Paris for the country at the invitation of their Aunt Isolde, widow of their mother's estranged brother. Anatole has some rather nasty people after him, and Léonie just wants to get out of the city for a while. Upon arriving at the country estate, the Domain de la Cade in Rennes-les-Bain, they settle in for a long visit. But all is not as it seems at the Domain, and the siblings, along with their aunt, may not have left all the danger behind them in Paris.

Jump to modern-day France, and meet 26-year-old American graduate student Meredith Martin, who is researching a biography on Debussy as well as her own family history. She has also come to the Domain de la Cade, now an exclusive hotel, in search of both a family connection and a Debussy connection. She is eerily familiar with the Domain although she's never before visited. And soon she also discovers danger lurking for her in the recesses and grounds of the estate.

The story pops back and forth between these eras in a fairly logical pattern and is entertaining enough. I had some difficulty with character differentiation: the reader, whose name escapes me at the moment, had a convincing French accent although she made little distinction between the female voices. She did not give Meredith an American accent, which did not help. I found Léonie annoying, whiny, and overly childish for her age. I didn't care much for any of the female characters, which is unfortunate since the story was essentially theirs. In fact, I didn't care much for any of the characters. If I'd had been reading a hard copy rather than listening while driving across Oklahoma, Texas, and the desert Southwest, I'd have put it down and found something else. As such, I was a captive audience. But I breathed a sigh of relief -- "Thank heavens that's over!" -- when I finished the last disc just as I pulled in front of the hotel where I would be staying in California. It's hard to say whether the relief came more from the drive being done or the book.



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