2010 Book 11 - Sepulchre

I'm slowly getting caught up on documenting my 2010 reading synopsis that I'd planned. I guess I got ahead of reading stuff and then jumping into the next book without opening up the computer....I know CRAZY!!

So, I finished reading Kate Mosse's Sepulchre about a month ago, just as I was moving into the house, which may have been another reason why I didn't get it documented. Here is what is written on the inside flap:

October 1891: Seventeen-year-old Leonie Vernier and her brother, Anatole, abandon the gaslit streets of Paris for the sleepy mountain town of Rennes-les-Bains in southwest France. They've come at the invitation of their widowed aunt, whose estate, the Domaine de la Cade, is famous in the region. But their aunt, and the Domaine, are not what Leonie had imagined. Aunt Isolde is young, willowy, and beautiful, yet with a melancholy air that suits the slightly sinister Comaine. Leonie discovers that the isolated country house and its ancient forests have long been the subject of local superstition; when she stumbles across a ruined Visigoth sepulchre, she unwittingly involves herself with the timeless mystery of this eerie place, which may be spelled out in a strange pack of tarot cards that is rumored to hold the power of life and death. While Leonie delves deeper into the secrets of the Domaine, a different evil stalks her family - one that may explain why Leonie and Anatole were invited to Rennes-les-Bains in the first place.

October 2007: More than a century later, Meredith Martin, an American graduate student, arrives in Rennes-les-Bains. She checks into a grand old hotel - the Domaine de la Cade - and almost instantly, strange dreams and visions begin to haunt her waking hours. A chance encounter leads her to a pack of tarot cards painted by Leonie Vernier, which may hold the key to this twenty-first-century American's fate...and explain the ties that bind the two women together.

As the Feast of All Saints approaches - when the veil between life and death is thinnest - Meredith is drawn inexorably to a secluded forest glade where the secrets of the past are far from buried.

I found this book to be a pretty light, mind-candy sort of read. There wasn't a whole lot of plot points to try and follow, even though the book does shift between the past and the present. I do like a historical novel, if you hadn't figured that out yet, and this one intrigued me and made me want to find out more about the time period. Some of the characters are a little tedious and if I could have, I would have given one of them a really good slap in the face, but since I couldn't do that I just kept calling her stupid. Anyway, I would probably not recommend this book to most people. I liked it, but would not be something that I would push onto somebody else.