Meanwhile, in a parallel narrative, teenaged Alaïs, daughter of one of the Grail’s appointed guardians, is entrusted with an invaluable book, one of three that together reveal the Grail’s long-hidden secrets. Two skeletons and a ring bearing a labyrinth design lead, by an agreeably circuitous route, to a mystery related to the story of the Holy Grail, dating back to the culture of ancient Egypt-and attracting various shady characters with vested interests. Its modern protagonist is 30-ish Alice Tanner, who joins an archaeological dig in the Pyrenees hoping to rev up her uneventful life, and makes an astonishing discovery while exploring a mountainside cave. 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 lightly-and of higher literary quality than The Da Vinci Code, to which it will inevitably be compared. I don't think I'll try another book by this author.Dan Brown probably need not move over, but he may have to share the wealth with this well-researched tale, set in both contemporary and 13th-century France (Carcassonne), and featuring two intrepid heroines. After trying to get through Labyrinth I'm glad that it wasn't. I read The Winter Ghosts by the same author recently and really enjoyed it, and felt that it should have been longer. I get that the author knew what she was talking about she wrote 500 pages about it. It reminded me of when you write assignments at school and you have to put quotes and references in to prove you know what you're talking about. The thing that finally stopped me from reading was the amount of French phrases throughout it. I did try to get through it but it felt like a chore to read. After reading that many pages of a book you should feel like you know the characters, but they bored me. The main characters lacked personality and I didn't like any of them. It could have done with a very thorough edit before it made it to print. It was incredibly slow-going and the flowery prose, littered with cliche, odd word usage and unnecessary description, was hard work to read. I abandoned this book about a fifth of the way in. I've been wanting to read it for a while, but noticed it shortly after I'd finished reading Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, and as it sounded similar I decided to leave it a while before I picked it up. I was really disappointed with this book.

Kate mosse labyrinth series