Tag Archives: kate mosse

This is the second in the Labyrinth series (i have borrowed them from a friend)

Here’s the blurb ..

In 1891, young Léonie Vernier and her brother Anatole arrive in the beautiful town of Rennes-les-Bains, in southwest France. They’ve come at the invitation of their widowed aunt, whose mountain estate, Domain de la Cade, is famous in the region. But it soon becomes clear that their aunt Isolde-and the Domain-are not what Léonie had imagined. The villagers claim that Isolde’s late husband died after summoning a demon from the old Visigoth sepulchre high on the mountainside. A book from the Domain’s cavernous library describes the strange tarot pack that mysteriously disappeared following the uncle’s death. But while Léonie delves deeper into the ancient mysteries of the Domain, a different evil stalks her family-one which may explain why Léonie and Anatole were invited to the sinister Domain in the first place.

More than a century later, Meredith Martin, an American graduate student, arrives in France to study the life of Claude Debussy, the nineteenth century French composer. In Rennesles-Bains, Meredith checks into a grand old hotel-the Domain de la Cade. Something about the hotel feels eerily familiar, and strange dreams and visions begin to haunt Meredith’s waking hours. A chance encounter leads her to a pack of tarot cards painted by Léonie Vernier, which may hold the key to this twenty-first century American’s fate . . . just as they did to the fate of Léonie Vernier more than a century earlier.

It took me a long time to get into this one, I was about halfway through before I really got engrossed (and these books are long). Once again, there are two time lines; 1891 and 2007, and a mystical element (this time Tarot cards and unrestful spirits). There is also a bit of a romance and you learn some French history. There is also a diabolical villain. So, I would say, something for everyone. You can definitely lose yourself in this world.

A review