Review: Sepulchre by Kate Mosse

Sepulchre rotates between Meredith Martin, living in the present day and traveling through France to research the book she's currently writing on the life of Claude Debussey, and also her family's past, and Leonie Vernier, a young girl living in the 1890s.  Leonie and Meredith end up having a lot in common and are connected through a set of old tarot cards and a song about a sepulchre.

So this was a fantastic book!  My summary up above is not really that great, but I didn't want to give away a lot of information while describing it, so I recommend you check out the summary from the back of the book.

I loved Leonie and 1890s France right away.  She is such a fun character who at first seems like just your average 18ish year old girl but ends up being so much more as she grows as a person.  Meredith on the other hand I had to warm up to.  I wasn't as captivated by her, though her story in itself I really liked. 

This book is filled with mystery: what's going on in the supulchre??  Is there really a history if devil warship there??  And what exactly is so great about those tarot cards?

I highly, highly, highly recommend this book.  The writing is fantastic-it got me from page 1:
"The story begins in a city of bones.  In the alleyways of the dead.  In the silent boulevards and promenades and impasses of the cimetiere de Montmartre in Paris, a place inhabited by tombs and stone angels and the loitering ghosts of those forgotten before they are even cold in their graves."

And then page 5:
"But now, many hundreds of miles to the south of Paris, something is stirring.  A reaction, a connection, a consequence.  In the ancient beech woods above the fashionable spa town of Rennes-les-Bains, a breath of wind lifts the leaves.  Music heard but not heard.  Enfin."

How captivating is that??

Here are some other favorite lines:
Page 73: "Outside, snow had been falling. Steady flakes, persistent in a white sky, covering the world with silence." (my favorite kind of snow!!!!)

Page 246: "Our influence upon the universe is nothing more than a whisper.  Its essential character, its qualities of light and dark, were set millenia before man attempted to make his mark upon the landscape.  The ghosts of those who have gone before are all around us, absorbed into the pattern, the music of the world, if you like."

Have you read Sepulchre??  What did you think?


Title: Sepulchre
Author: Kate Mosse
Date of Publication: 2008
Number of Pages: 592
Genre: Fiction
Source: Lent to me by one of my bestest friends ever