Labyrinth

By: Kate Mosse

Narrated by: Donada Peters

Length: 19 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

July 2005. In the Pyrenees mountains near Carcassonne, Alice, a volunteer at an archaeological dig stumbles into a cave and makes a startling discovery: two crumbling skeletons, strange writings on the walls, and the pattern of a labyrinth; between the skeletons, a stone ring, and a small leather bag.

Eight hundred years earlier, on the eve of a brutal crusade to stamp out heresy that will rip apart southern France, Alais is given a ring and a mysterious book for safekeeping by her father as he leaves to fight the crusaders. The book, he says, contains the secret of the true Grail, and the ring, inscribed with a labyrinth, will identify a guardian of the Grail. As crusading armies led by Church potentates and nobles of northern France gather outside the city walls of Carcassonne, it will take great sacrifice to keep the secret of the labyrinth safe.

In the present, another woman sees the find as a means to the political power she craves; while a man who has great power will kill to destroy all traces of the discovery and everyone who stands in his way.

©2006 Mosse Associates, Ltd. (P)2006 Penguin Audio, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., and Books on Tape

Did not finish

Gave it until Chapter 12. Couldn't finish. Not my cup of tea. Did not keep my attention.

NO STARS, didn't finish listening to it

I also very, very much disliked the narrator, whose voice I found grating. The novel, even if I had read it on paper, I did not find well written. I wouldn't have given it even one star, but apparently that is a technical impossiblity on the webpage. There seemed to be many anachronisms. Fairly early in the story, I didn't like or respect the main character, or understand her motivations, and lost interest in the novel about a fifth of the way through. I slogged on, but after getting about a third of the way (and this was just listening in my car, in traffic, so it didn't have to be very good) I was so bored and uninterested that I didn't finish listening to the book. I would not, obviously, recommend it at all.

This is one you will want to put down.

I do not finish few books. After all, I paid good money to buy them. I could not suffer through this one. Switching time periods got extremely confusing. The mystery is somewhat there but never grabbed me. The story left me wanting to be challenged by a puzzle and intrigued by a plot. Couple this yawing plot with a reader who does not add dimension to the story but rather distracts the listener, this is one Audio book I could put down.

Great narration, poor story

I disagree with the previous, negative, remarks about the narrator. I thought that she did a fine job with a poorly written story.

The book was overly complicated considering the fact that the plot was painfully predictable. There were too many characters, pointless details were described in gratuitously ornate fashion, and too often the dialog lapsed into something one would expect from a Harlequin romance.

The basic premise was interesting and there were parts that kept my attention, but overall it seemed that the author either fell in love the the idea of the story, or simply couldn't help herself from going into too much detail.

Hard to keep interested

This thing drones on and on, the descriptions of the most mundane things every time we switched from past to present and vise versa were painful. About 10% (maybe less) is in French, why bother?

I had to give it up about 3/4 of the way through (a better book came along). I hope to finish it when I have more free time (I wish I'd bought the abridged version, the story might be good).

Hard to Follow - Clumsy

I have tried now for 2 months to listen and get into this book. I have a problem with the narrator and the overall quality of the recording. Sometimes very muffled content.

More than that, though, the story is very interesting, but what got in my way is the detail behind the time jumps. There is way too much emphasis put into the History of the story and not enough in the present. I am a fan of this type of genre, but prefer leaving some of the history as a mystery, and this appears to divulge too much.

As I am over 8 hours in, in 2 months time, I am giving up on it for now. Wish it was better developed.

terrible narrator

hated it for the terrible narration
it was just the worst voice ever good Lord

Bad comparison of The Historian

Kept my interest for first 15 minutes, then hard to pay attention. Many people compared this to The Historian... obviously they did not like the Historian in the same way I did. Narrator was ok, but there really needs to be different voices