Book Review: "Sepulchre" by Kate Mosse

“Sepulchre” is the second offering by British author Kate Mosse. The book parallels the lives of Leonie, a young French woman living in 1891 Paris, and Meredith Martin, a young American woman visiting France in the early 21st century to research a biography she is writing about composer Claude Debussy, as well as her own mysterious family heritage.
I should have loved this book. Setting is almost as important to me as character, and in “Sepulchre,” Mosse revisits Carcassonne, territory she first trod in “Labyrinth,” now in paperback. Both books weave together two time periods to great effect. Like setting, the device of parallel characters in different time periods, known as time-slip, is a favorite of mine. Another favorite thing of mine is the Tarot cards (the Empress in this blog title refers to the Empress card in the Tarot.), which are featured prominently in “Sepulchre,” adding to the reasons I should have really loved this book. And yet …
Let’s begin in 1891. “Sepulchre” begins in a cemetery following the supposed death of the mistress of Anatole, Leonie’s brother. It takes a while into the book before that scene makes sense as the starting point of the book, but the death of Anatole’s lover is at the heart of the drama. It takes a while for the action of the book to get moving, which doesn’t really find its feet until an invitation arrives for Anatole and Leonie to visit their late uncle’s widow, Isolde, at her estate, Domain de la Cade, near the spa town of Rennes-les-Bains in southwest France. Leonie notices strange behavior on the part of her brother, who leaves a trail of misinformation and makes switchbacks on their journey out of Paris. We know he is being pursued, but we don’t know why or by whom. When the pair finally arrives safely at Domain de la Cade, we know too that Anatole’s relationship with their widowed aunt is more than familial. The reader surmises this, but it takes Leonie a ridiculous amount of time to catch on. Actually, she never does, but instead has to have the nature of the relationship spelled out for her by Anatole. Don’t be thinking incest here though: Aunt Isolde is the much younger wife of Leonie and Anatole’s uncle. Isolde’s relationship to her late husband was one of convenience and companionship rather than love and adoration.
While Meredith Martin is visiting Paris in the present day, a chance Tarot reading reveals more about herself than about her research subject, Claude Debussy, and firms her resolve to visit Rennes-les-Bains and research the unknown history of her birth family. With the deck of Tarot cards in hand, Meredith leaves Paris and becomes a guest at the Hotel Domain de la Cade. She immediately begins seeing strange visions of a young, copper-haired woman with green eyes who appears to be urging her to act. She later learns the woman’s identity—Leonie Vernier. She comes to realize that uncovering the mystery of Leonie might well answer Meredith’s own questions about her family.
Mosse’s descriptions of the town and countryside surroundings of Rennes-les-Bains are amazingly vivid, capturing the feel of the place as well as its beauty. The region should hire her as head of its tourism division, because I want nothing so much now as to visit the area. This setting and Mosse’s descriptions of it are what kept me reading the book. I must say here that of course, I listened to the unabridged audio version of the book. I found the narrator’s voice captivating, both in “Sepulchre” and in “Labyrinth,” and now I want to learn to speak French. A few characters from the earlier book make an appearance in “Sepulchre,” though it isn’t necessary to have read “Labyrinth” first. It’s just a nice spark of recognition when you remember that you’ve met this or that character before.
The book’s troubles begin when while visiting Carcassonne for a concert, Leonie defies her brother’s strict entreaty that she remain nearby. In a turn all too common for Mosse’s heroines, and all too infuriating for Mosse’s readers, Leonie ignores her brother’s warnings. For what purpose? So that she can be the feisty young heroine I suppose. She gets caught in a storm and takes shelter in a church, where the charming yet dangerous Victor, who we learn is the book’s villain, finds her and gleans from her information that will lead him to Isolde, with whom he had a previous affair, an affair so horrific and devastating that Isolde and Anatole saw no escape except to fake Isolde’s death—the opening scene in the cemetery.
I can think of at least five other plot devices, all of them less contrived and more believable, to get Victor to the Domain De La Cade and thereby heighten the tension, that don’t leave Leonie looking like an irredeemable ditz. I recalled this same plot device being employed in Labyrinth, and it nearly ruined that story for me as well. In my opinion, the character of Leonie never recovered from the author’s mishandling of her in that scene. Contrivances abound in this book, both in character motivation and in dialogue.
The sepulchre that gives the book its title is an ancient Visigoth sepulchre on the grounds of the Domain de la Cade that is rumored to have housed a demon that was once released into the countryside by Isolde’s late husband. The sepulchre is the stage for the final showdown between Leonie and Victor, a showdown that occurs after nearly everything is lost to Leonie. In Meredith’s time, the current owner of the Hotel Domain De La Cade, Julian Lawrence, has spent his fortune searching for the original Tarot cards that will lead him to the Visigoth treasure that is thought to be buried on the hotel grounds. He is an evil, twisted man as well, the modern incarnation of Victor.
Meredith must race against time to find the cards before Julian does. It is the only way she can save herself and free Leonie from her ghostly existence.
“Sepulchre” held my interest, albeit with no small amount of eye rolling. In the end, my recommendation is that if you like France as a setting, haunting ghost stories, and epic tales of intrigue, you will like this book. Just don’t let your expectations run away with you. I suggest getting it in paperback though or borrowing it from the library. Its shortcomings make it unlikely to be a favorite reread.