This book was a very good read, I couldn't put it down. Kate Mosse has also written Sepulchre which is equally good.

This book was a very interesting take on the Grail Legend; however, I think that this book could have been 5 star and was only 3 star. The plot could be plodding at moments. There are two linear stories followed through the book. The story of Alais in 1209 and the story of Alice in 2004. I personally think that the stories may have been told more effectively by telling first the 1209 story and then the 2004 story, as opposed to jumping back and forth. Also, I found that the climax of the story was a little lacking. Overall, I would recommend this book for persons interested in grail legends, the Cathars, and/or Medieval history.

I'm halfway through Labyrinth and questioning whether I will bother to finish it. I wanted to like this book, but it has never really captured my imagination nor given me any reason to care about these characters. I wish I could explain (to myself) what makes one work of fiction so involving and so compelling and another so flat, even though both authors seem to be reasonably competent. This one just doesn't do it for me.

The idea was promising, but I had a hard time muddling through all the MINUTE historical details (w/o explaining the over-all history), the overwhelming amount of french words, & the sudden changes from one character to another, (that I had a difficult time keeping straight anyway). Maybe if I knew the places and the history of that time in France as well as the author seems to, I might not be so confused; but, it was unknown to me & though I was interested, I had to ck other websites to try to understand the history period better. Also, there were gaping holes in many of the characters' motives and I still don't understand the ending. There were times when I thought the story was getting better, only to shift suddenly and leave me disappointed. Oh well.

picked up this book in Stockholm airpot and couldn't put it down. Fascinating history. Wish map was more detailed

Back & forth 800 years difference,but still the story line sucked. The ending was impossibly stupid.
Nuff said.

Just finished reading this rather voluminous book. Let's face it - it was OK, leaning towards good. Here's how.

The basic premise of the book is the search for the Grail (yes, another one!). Of course all ideas are original, just that some are rather less original than others. Keeping snide remarks aside, the book does have its strong points, and one must give credit where it deserves.

Kate Mosse has dexterously managed to weave a yarn, stretching (quite thin at times, if you ask me!) over more than 800 years, involving some rather exotic themes and preparing a broth that at times looks like overkill. The story revolves around Alais who, towards the beginning of the 13th century gets involved in the safekeeping of the Grail, and Alice, who in the early part of the 21st century, stumbles (literally!) across the same.

While the plot might look convoluted to many if not most readers, it certainly does manage to hold attention for a majority of the book's 500+ pages. But there are times when the author's attention to detail just doesn't sell. Also, the fact that the story involves latent memory, and some really long-living characters doesn't help either.

All said and done, I would have loved this book if it had:
- been about 300-odd pages in length,
- avoided the 800-year time-span OR at least not drawn (unneccesary)parallels in the characters in the two eras

Be that as it may, the description of France of the 13th century is quite beautiful, and this is one aspect where the use of ten words instead of five (as the Mosse is sometimes prone to using) indeed does justice to the reading pleasure. Also, character development is good and coherent. The war scenes are also well-written and tempered.

The weakest link - the love story of Alice. I was taken off-guard when it happened.

Go ahead - judge for yourself. It's worth at least one read.

Let's keep it short:

If you're looking for the type of book that will keep you up all night with "just one more chapter" - this ain't it. Only about a third of this book (sadly scattered throughout) will grab your attention, and really just because you're curious how things will turn out, not because you need to find out how things turn out.

If you're looking for the some "above average" beach reading - you found it. You can put this book down and pick it up without really missing a beat or much of anything.

Quick note of warning: last 40-60 pages are dreadful and the "Well, let me just see what happens so at least I can say I read it" approach may not help you for long....

I liked this book but have a few comments. I found the language a problem. I speak no French and I certainly don't speak southern French which is what she uses. One cannot even find a translator on the internet for the language of the Cathars. Anytime an author does this, I think the author is not writing for the general population and keeps the author on a pedestal above her readers. I found the characters not flushed out enough. They seemed a little lean. They were just the vehicle in which she moved the story. Her historical facts were quite good though and very interesting. I think her books are more cerebral than heart. I did read it to the end as she does weave an interesting story. I probably won't continue with her new book though especially since she does that pedantic language thing again. Listen, if you are going to use a foreign language, translate it for your reader's sake.

This book was great. It did take a little while to really get into the really exciting parts but it was so very worth it. You do have to remember, though that the author is not American, so to the American reader some of her phrases sound a little off.
I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good historical story. Just remember that it's fiction....a lot of people who have reviewed this don't seem to understand that fact.
I couldn't wait to find out the ending but at the same time didn't want the story to end. I still want more of this book!

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was a somewhat arduous read, especially for the first quarter of it or so, but after you get to know the characters--in both past and present--it becomes hard to put it down. It gives a lot of background about the Cathars and the Crusades, which I found very interesting and useful; however, this information is not so dry and overwhelming that it ruins the flavor of romance and mystery that this book has to offer. It was fulfilling right up to the final pages. I definitely recommend it for somebody looking for something a little different from the typical Dan Brown-esque novels on the bookshelves currently.

Based on the description, I expected this to be a DaVinci Code knock-off, but gave it a shot since I recieved a free copy. Comparing Labyrinth to The Davinci Code do it injustice; this is definately not an imitator and is worth reading in it's own right. I enjoyed the characters, plot, and switching between the past and present. I'm not sure it has literary value (I wouldn't argue that The DaVinci Code does, either), but it's certainly complex enough to make you think about the plot and character relationships without being difficult to follow.

I loved this book- could not put it down- great story and interesting history as well. Readers with half a clue about religions, travel, and history can easily sort out what is fiction from the facts. I say bravo, and can't wait for more Kate Mosse books to come.....

I actually enjoyed the first couple of hundred pages of the novel. The character-development was rather slow, but the people in the book were reacting in ways that made sense. Then, in an effort to get the story from point A to point B, Mosse suddenly flattens the characters to two dimensions, forcing them to do things that are completely out of sinc with who they are. At that point, my reading rate slowed because I just wasn't that interested in picking up the book anymore.

There were two unforgivable flaws, as I saw it. First, I could feel the writer's impatience to get to the end, in the way that she forced the plot for so much of the book. Second, she was lazy in checking for errors. I mean, when a character goes to sleep in a cottage, and then wakes up the next morning in a hotel, you've got to wonder.

The story might have been good if a more mature writer had written it and more importantly, if it had had an editor worth the name.

The description of this book makes it sound like a bad knock-off of The DaVinci Code, but it's actually not a bad book at all. An interesting story, solid characters. It's a bit difficult to start, but once you get into it, it can really hold your attention.

Once I got to page 40, I was drawn into the excellent plot of this twisty storyline. But I almost gave up before I got there. The story jumps between a modern day archeological dig in 2005 and a parallel plot that takes place 800 years earlier -- both in southern France near Carcassonne.

The story centers around the history of the Holy Grail, the Crusades, a religious sect called the Cathars, and 2 mysterious societies sworn to conquer each other. The author does a great job of bringing the 800-year-old world of Alais to vivid life, and I found 2005's Alice a little boring in comparison.

The plot jumps around in time too much too early in the book, so it's hard to get very interested in either story right away. But after page 40 or so we get to spend a little time in each world, and therefore enjoy each a little more. The language also bugged me: the characters kept getting "overwhelmed" (a word the author uses flexibly to mean different things at different times), and short hairs were forever standing on end on the backs of everybody's necks.

The author seemed to have a really hard time helping her characters express their emotions -- lots of inexplicable feelings of warmth and fear -- and she gave her characters a very limited vocabulary to describe their feelings. Because of this, I found it difficult to care about Alice and Alais. The men actually seemed to have more depth. By the end, I felt like Guilhem and Sajhe had become flesh-and-blood, but the modern-day Alice was still a paper-cut-out of a person.

Despite my irritation with the language, a few 1-dimensional characters, and the jumpiness of the plot early in the book, the *story* was engaging. It brought the 12th century, the Cathars, and the Crusades to life for me. I bought this to read on an airplane, and I would recommend it as a good book to read on an airplane ride (after page 40).

I made it to page 133, but then I knew for sure: I'm not wasting another minute on this book. Hailed as the intelligent alternative to The Da Vinci Code, it is in fact anything but. Whereas the latter story, despite its many glaring deficiences, was at least told with a gusto that carried you along, this one is all plodding, utterly humourless boredom. The characters are irritating in the extreme; within pages I wished I could meet Alice so I could kick her. The writing is an equally irritating mix of pretentiousness and amateurism. There is an Introduction, an Historical note, a note on the language, so that we all know Ms Mosse thinks she's done something of great importance and went about her homework well. But then the story begins, and o dear... The first few pages alone offer a dispiriting catalogue of inept writing, though fortunately some goofs are inadvertently hilarious. E.g., when exploring a newly discovered cave, Alice happens upon two skeletons, "formerly human". Formerly human? What, have they turned animal in the meantime? Somewhat incongruously for somebody volunteering at an archeological dig, Alice, whom we are told is a woman who does not believe in ghosts or superstitions (does one 'believe' in superstitions?), goes into a fit of hysterics. Emotional reactions and similes are consistently overblown. Characters can't enter a dark space or open a letter without taking "a deep breath". Strange and inexplicable premonitions rule the day. A drop of blood falls on a leg and explodes "like a firework in the sky on Guy Fawkes night" - one hopes emergency services were nearby (and why Guy Fawkes night? Do fireworks explode differently on that particular night?). At times one gets the impression the author wasn't thinking at all. Alice enters a cave and lights a lighter to "check if there's oxygen". She's in a shallow cave that she just entered through an opening obviously large enough for her to pass through, and she fears it may be a vacuum?

Things hardly get better when we move back in time to the early middle ages and find out that Alice, god forbid, has a medieval alter ego called Alaïs. Soon we find her in an amourous scene with her husband that would make even Barbara Cartland cringe. We also start to notice that people are constantly behaving in extreme and violent ways without obvious reason. The author even tells us so. "For reasons she could not account for" this or that character does something a real person would never do. The reason is, however, obvious to the reader. It is the greatest deficiency of this book that has no lack of deficiencies to begin with: neither characters nor storytelling ever evolve beyond the barest mechanical devices to help the plot along. Touristy descriptions of quaint towns and the interspersing of dialogue with snippets of French and Langue d'Oc do nothing to disguise the fact. (Yes, this is one of those books where sometimes the French speak French; at other times they speak English and yet it is still French; and then they speak English and it's English...). This is mediocre high school magazine writing bloated to over 500 pages by an author who seriously overestimates her own abilities. To this reader, believability was lost within 3 pages, and after a 100 I had lost any interest in the dénouement whatsoever. There are too many great novels out there to bother with this.

I'm at a loss with this book. On one hand, I really connected with the characters of Alais and Alice. I do think the whole reincarnation bit was an interesting idea, and that's not a spoiler. If, by page 50, you can't figure out that Alais and Alice are kinda, sorta the same person, then you're just not putting two and two together.

I think the storyline was weak. What is the Grail supposed to be? Is it just me? Did I miss something? The plot moves as slow as molasses, and the style is too wordy for me. So many times, I was thinking, okay, here it comes. Here's the big answer I've been waiting for. Instead, the book just faded away. I give it 4 stars b/c I became so wrapped up in the characters that I couldn't put it down.

One of the few books of historical fiction I can remember that I do not look forward to picking up. I think I will finish it because I am thrifty and do not want to have wasted the money. The device of switching between times is neat, but the overall work is labored. The air of gloom and frequent acts of violence do not enliven the plot.

This book was fascinating and I didn't want to put it down! I absolutely loved it! I have not felt this connected to characters of a book in a long time. It was a genuine heroine novel. I cannot say enough about this book! I loved the format of the book (past to present). I particularly enjoyed the past. I really loved this book!

This is one of the worst written novels I've come across in years. It makes Dan Brown look high-class. Turgid writing style, hackneyed plot devices, characters with the depth and complexity of kitchen towels, deliberate obfuscation, and no real ideas behind it (not to mention historical and archaeological inaccuracies on just about every page). The writer notes in the acknowledgements that her grade-school son contributed plot lines and ideas - I find this entirely believable. I cannot imagine why anyone is making a fuss about this book. Personally I am glad I borrowed ir from the library and didn't spent any money on it.

In July 2005, volunteer archaeologist Alice Tanner makes an amazing discovery while on a dig in the Pyrenees mountains: a hidden cave containing the skeletal remains of two people, strange writings, an ancient ring, and the symbol of a labyrinth. From the moment Alice stumbles into the long-hidden cave, events from 800 years before begin to intermingle with the present.

In July 1209, a brutal campaign has long been underway to stamp out what the church saw as heresy. Operating under the cover of the crusade against Cathars and other 'enemies' of the church, an even fiercer battle is underway: to discover and steal a complex secret so ancient that no one speaks its language anymore or understands its complicated mechanisms, but there are those still bound by sacred oath to protect it. By necessity although much too young for the enormous responsibility, seventeen year old Alais Pelletier becomes one of the guardians of the secret, and it will cost her everything she holds dear to preserve it for the generations to come.

This story has been described as a Grail adventure story for women, and that it is. Neither Alais or Alice know it at first, but they are connected by centuries and linked by bonds older than time. After the furor of The DaVinci Code many have wearied of Grail myths, including myself, but this one is worth adding to the collection. It strays far and away from the traditional christian-based Grail mythology, taking us much, much further back.

How many Grail/Templar/Jesuit/Inquisition conspiracy books are going to be published? Stop the insanity. If you must read one, find Umberto Eco's Foulcauts Pendulum. The only literate, original book in this overcrowded genre that I have read. This is not orginal in any way, and Ms. Moosse would do better to move into romance or suspense novels with her style, or lack thereof.

If this were I movie, I would have checked my watch a couple of times before the end. If you want to learn more about Southern France in the 12th Century, it is worthwhile to read this book. Entertaining for a plane trip or a beach read. Some of the writing, metaphors are pretty over the top..hot air sitting on the town "like a malignant Buddha." But, if you can forgive these rather frequent moments and the generic intimate depictions, you might be compelled to read more serious treatments. I was disbelieving at the end of the story as I was when I finished reading, Eight by Neville. Characters in both stories were around for a LONG time in the story.

A nice discussion of the grail and labyrinth...Crossing to Avalon by Jean Shinoda Bolen...a study of midlife and women's mysteries.

I listened to this CD, and I know the author spent probably years researching and writing this book, but the two sets of heroes, from the thirteenth century and the present, were so totally incompetent I yelled at them while listening, which must have looked very funny to people passing by. And Mosse waited until Disc 13 to explain who exactly the Cathars were and why the nasty French hated them. Both Alys and Alice were smart but so young and naive as to be beyond belief. They and their companions kept having their secrets stolen, being lied to and beaten up and rounded up and knifed and and and . .

Enough already! If this is a feminist DaVinci code, give me rewrite!

The story was engaging and entertaining. Overall a very good read.

I am not the type to read novels with castles and medievel storylines. But, I loved this novel. I was drawn in immediately and felt a part of the characters. I don't read novels for historical facts, I'll leave that for the history books. But, it is interesting to read someones take on something. Kate Mosses's story of the protection of and search for the Grail was a great read!

I found this rather unknown book by accident. I am glad I did.
I must admit that it took about 100 pages for me to get into the book, but it was a quick read from there on.
Kate Mosse weaves this story of the past and present beautifully. She reveals only enough to allow you to start forming a guess about what will happen next; then she side-swipes you and has you changing your mind all over again.
The characters were well designed, the plot was driven (after the 1st few chapters) and the backdrop was vividly described.
I only hope that I can find more books by this author; if her other offerings are as good as this book, she will be very successful.

I picked this book up because of a favourable review, saying it was a new take on the Holy Grail, well written, and suspenseful. The review was wrong on all counts. On the basis of this book I won't be picking up any works by Mosse.