Archive for June 4th, 2008

Oh boy, I sucked today.

635 words today. (It’s midnight here now.)

However, it was the semi final on The Apprentice and I got sucked into watching it lol.

Title: Cursed Legacy – Sorol
Words Written: 635
Words Total: 9801
Hero Mood: Puzzled and exhausted
Heroine Mood: Relaxed and curious
Story Snippet:
She’d let him sleep half hour after that one, worried he might suffer otherwise, but the drug hadn’t worn completely off… Mason glanced at Sorol, who lay on his stomach, resting his head on one arm, the other arm on the other side, on top of the pillow. He looked positively worn out.

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Labyrinth

Posted by: Anonymousein Authors, Books, Reviews in Authors, Books, Reviews
4
Jun

ISBN: 0752877321
Labyrinth
Kate Mosse
ISBN 0752877321

Bookrating3

Blurb:
July 1209: in Carcassonne a young girl is given a mysterious book by her father which he claims contains the secret of the true Grail. Although Alaïs cannot understand the strange words and symbols hidden within, she knows that her destiny lies in protecting it. It will take great sacrifice and faith to keep the secret of the labyrinth safe – a secret that stretches back thousands of years to the deserts of Ancient Egypt
. . .
July 2005: Alice Tanner stumbles upon two skeletons during an archaeological dig in the mountains outside Carcassonne. Inside the hidden tomb where the bones lie crumbling, she experiences an overwhelming sense of malevolence, as well as a creeping understanding that, however impossible it seems, she can somehow understand the mysterious ancient words carved into the rock. Too late, Alice realises she’s set in motion a terrifying sequence of events that she cannot control and that her destiny is inextricably tied up with the fate of the Cathars 800 years before.

Review:
I liked it. It’s not a bad book, not a bad story, it kept me reading and I wanted to know who the two skeletons were, but…
There’s always a but, isn’t there?
Frankly, I think about half the book could (and should) have been edited down a bit.
Kate Mosse writes very wordy, to say the least. I don’t speak French, so the translations were handy, but it became tiresome.
I liked Alaïs a damned side better than Alice. The former had spunk, the latter just kind of… plodded along. The parallels of the names were too obvious I thought. You knew who was who, and I think it might have been better to not kind of repeat the cast, 800 years on.
However.
Carcassonne… It came alive on the page. Absolutely stunningly alive. I have been there before, so some of the things she describes wake memories inside me of a very enjoyable day spent there. It zinged. Seriously, I don’t know a better word for it.
I won’t spoil the plot if you want to read it, but prepare yourself for a VERY thick book. It’s 697 pages. (I warned you she’s wordy!)
Because of the wordiness, because of the lackluster Alice, I’ll only give it a 3 out of 5, but 2 of those are because Kate Mosse made Carcassonne come alive again for me, and made me want to go back to visit.

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