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| Author: Kate Mosse
Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons
Category: Book
Used (12) Collectible (1) from £0.33
Avg. Customer Rating:  103 reviews
Sales Rank: 1121280
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 592
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 2.1
ISBN: 0399154671
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780399154676
ASIN: 0399154671
Publication Date: April 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
A Long Read November 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In many ways this was a difficult book to review.
For a start it runs to well over 700 pages and so the initial question has to be: Does it hold the reader's attention over such a marathon?
I read Mosse's previous novel Labyrinth and found it to be unnecessarily rambling and complex and at times tedious. Thankfully Sepulchre doesn't fall into this trap but it does take an effort at times to keep going.
Sepulchre is a simpler and more constrained book with less sweeping vistas than Labyrinth. The characters are reasonably well drawn and the early descriptions of Paris of 1891 are sharp. A number of reviewers have complained about the Americanisation of some of the passages, but I didn't find this a problem with the narrative flowing reasonably well.
At times my attention did wander somewhat but it would be some author that could sustain tension over such a long stretch, I still believe, however, that this book would have been better served at around 500 pages. At times background descriptions are just too detailed and lose interest. The minutae of character behaviour is sometimes over-stretched.
There are some other annoying aspects to the book. Firstly, even after 700+ pages you get the feeling that the author has suddenly decided it's time to tie up the loose ends and end the story. The conclusion therefore reads more like a report than part of the narrative.
Another annoyance is when the characters suddenly lapse into French in an attempt to make us believe they really are French. The story is in English 99% of the time but just occasionally changes track. It is the equivalent of the old boys war comics where Germans occasionally used a Germanic word such as achtung just to re-inforce the fact that they were indeed the Hun!
Annoyances aside I have to say it is not a bad read at all. There are almost two distinct stories here. One is the supernatural mystery but the other is quite a fascinating Victorian melodrama and it is possibly this that is the most effective.
The action ultimately ends in more of a whimper than a bang as if a cataclysmic climax is just too much for the author. Overall I would recommend it as a decent read as long as you aren't expecting a classic.
 I can't finish this book either! October 28, 2008
I thought it was just me! I read Labyrinth and really enjoyed it and was very much looking forward to reading this but oh dear, what a chore. I am glad I am not the only one who cannot manage to suffer until the end.
Oh dear October 18, 2008
I loved Labyrinth and was looking forward to Sepulchre. Unfortunately it's been an up hill struggle all the way.
I hate quitting books, but 400 pages in it's getting no better and having read the other reviews here I've decided not to waste anymore of my life on it.
I completely agree with all the comments about shallow characters, ridiculous mills and boone romanticism, cliched americanisms and a completely implausible, two-dimensional and non-engaging plot, not to mention the tedious prose.
What a disappointment.
Same plot, different story.... September 29, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Is it only me or is Sepulchre more or less identical to Labyrinth? I'm ploughing through it, skim-reading quite a lot of it admittedly, but when Shelah O'Donnell turns up and "an incident in the Sabarthes mountains in 2005" is mentioned, the ENTIRE plot of Labyrinth comes back to me, rather than me just thinking it was tediously similar. Audric Baillard is, of course, still floating around too! I'm finding myself now trying to recap on the earlier book, rather than wondering what's going to happen next in this one, which is surely not good!
Its going to be hard work in order to finish the "final" 250 pages, which is such a shame. Kate Mosse could be an extremely competent and actually very good historical writer, as she's clearly very well-read, intelligent woman.
739 pages do not necessarily make a good book!
 Disappointing September 21, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I found this book quite disappointing. It seemed to me as if the author had done loads of research on historical events, Debussy, Tarot etc and then just tried to cram it all together in this weak story and it didn't work. The book was way too long, it should have been at least a third shorter. I agree with other reviewers that the modern segments were the weakest, Meredith and Hal were not fully rounded characters. Somehow though I did want to persevere with it and read it to the end, although it was less than gripping.
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