The number one bestselling phenomenonJULY 1209, Carcassonne. Seventeen-year-old Alais Pelletier is given a mysterious book by her father, which he claims contains the secret of the true Grail. Although Alais cannot understand the strange words and symbols hidden within, she knows that her destiny lies in keeping the secret of the labyrinth safe.JULY 2005. Archaeologist Alice Tanner discovers two skeletons in a forgotten cave in the French Pyrenees. Puzzled by the labyrinth symbol carved into the rock, she realises she has disturbed something that was meant to remain buried. Soon, a link to a shocking secret - and her own past - is revealed . . . 'LABYRINTH is a reader's Holy Grail . . . a heart-wrenching, thrilling tale' Val McDermid'An action-packed adventure of modern conspiracy and medieval passion' IndependentBOOK ONE OF THE LANGUEDOC TRILOGY
About the Author :
Kate Mosse is an international bestselling novelist, non-fiction writer, essayist and playwright. With sales of more than 8 million copies worldwide, her books have been translated into 37 languages and published in 40 countries. Her fiction includes the Languedoc trilogy (Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel), the gothic novels The Winter Ghosts and The Taxidermist's Daughter, a short story collection (The Mistletoe Bride) and more recently a historical adventure series, The Burning Chambers and The City of Tears. Her non-fiction includes the highly-acclaimed memoir An Extra Pair of Hands and she is working on a book and television series based on her global 'Woman in History' campaign. The Founder Director of the Women's Prize for Fiction, Kate is a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing and Contemporary Fiction at the University of Chichester and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. An interviewer and presenter, she hosts the pre-show series at Chichester Festival Theatre, chairs Platform events for the National Theatre and is an Ambassador for Parkinson's UK. She was awarded an OBE in 2013 and a CBE in 2024 for services to literature, women and charity.
Review :
The author has combined an ingenious adventure story with a wonderfully detailed account of the historical background of the Languedoc ... the result is entirely compelling and full of incidental pleasures
Pacey and addictive
Saturated with a passionate understanding of the region's past in a way that puts more conventional historical accounts to shame. Mosse wears her learning so lightly, knitting her historical research so neatly into her narrative . . . reminiscent of those twin goddesses of popular historical fiction, Jean Plaidy and Mary Renault
A gripping holy grail quest ... the story line runs on knowledge and fun - Carcassonne never looked so good
This is a novel clearly fuelled by an authorial obsession with a history, region and concept. The settings are evocative and... there are also some powerful dramatic scenes: the climactic moments where the good and evil women meet and battle it out are particularly compelling... [An] intriguing...passionate book
A spellbinding adventure story
LABYRINTH is very much a Girl's Own story: a grail quest in which women aren't helpless creatures to be rescued, or decorative bystanders, but central to the action, with the capacity to change history
An elegantly written time-slip novel set in France. There's medieval passion and modern-day conspiracy, all revolving around three hidden books
A thumping read: Mosse creates a world so complete I began to miss it before the last page. More intriguing than Dan Brown, a conundrum with lasting depth and vigour, LABYRINTH captivates from the first page until the final twist
Labyrinth is a reader's Holy Grail, mixing legend, religion, history, past and present in a heart-wrenching, thrilling tale. Eat your heart out, Dan Brown, this is the real thing
This year's gripping romp . . . intelligently written. Her love of the location around Carcassonne . . . is evident from her generous descriptions of the city and the surrounding countryside; and her research into the details of the Cathar's lives and language is evidently extensive . . . LABYRINTH will fulfil everyone's expectations, not least because of Mosse's passion for the subject matter and her narrative verve
LABYRINTH has all the ingredients of a summer blockbuster
It is the freedom to luxuriate in a fully realised work that makes Mosse's novel such a pleasurable read . . . Mosse infuses each scene with such depth of atmospheric detail that full immersion is inevitable . . . Mosse wields admirable control over the vast body of her material and manoeuvres through it with subtlety and grace
Prepare to be chilled by Kate Mosse's archaeological thriller
There is nothing like a lovely long luscious journey through the French Pyrenees, and that is what Kate Mosse provides in her latest novel, Labyrinth . . . a spellbinding novel that slips between the present day and the thirteenth century . . . Mosse mixes a Grail adventure with passion and great writing in a book that for once features two feisty lead women
A lovely, intelligent novel of discovery and loss, generous in its historical scope and intimate in its tender details
Saturated with a passionate understanding of the region's past in a way that puts more conventional historical accounts to shame. Mosse wears her learning so lightly, knitting her historical research so neatly into her narrative, that we never get the slightest sense of being preached or lectured to... [conveying] the texture of various patches of the past with such rich complexity
An action packed adventure of modern conspiracy and medieval passion ... a Grail gripper [and] elegantly written timeslip novel set in France
