Sepulcher, by Kate Moss

Right after reading Ms. Moss’ Labyrinth, I decided to pick up Sepulcher, which was written after Labyrinth, to see whether her style had improved with time.  I’m happy to report that it has (her long winded descriptions are still there but they seemed less frequent, shorter, and more to the point) but I also have to say that she still makes decisions that boggle the mind.

For instance, in Sepulcher, which has nothing to do whatsoever with Labyrinth in terms of story or time period, Ms. Moss decided to introduce a couple characters from Labyrinth.  Why?  No idea.  I honestly cannot understand why she would make that decision.

Sure, both books use the two-timelines storyline, that is we are transported back and forth in time between two stories that eventually connect in some way, but that’s as far as it goes in terms of similarities.  Furthermore, one of those two characters was a key character from Labyrinth who carried a very important secret.

The reason why this sort of thing counts as a negative, in my opinion, is that if you’ve read Labyrinth, when these characters are introduced you first start questioning why this character is here, then you start analyzing the timeline to see if it even makes sense that they are here, and finally you start wondering how the two books are connected, what is the meaning behind their introduction, whether this is actually a sequel, what other characters might come into play that you already know, and so on.

All those distractions are unnecessary and detract from the enjoyment of the book you’re presently reading.  I can say all this for a fact because I actually went through the stages outline above.  This cost me time and was ultimately completely useless because there is no link whatsoever between the two books.  The characters that appear in both bring no added value to Sepulcher from Labyrinth and could have been just as easily brand new characters.  Had Ms. Moss suddenly run out of imagination and couldn’t figure out how to write her new book without making use of old characters that didn’t belong there?  Very odd and ultimately annoying.

The story per se isn’t bad.  A young teenage girl in late 19th century Paris lives through some unforeseen and unfortunate events because of her brother’s love interest’s connection to a very bad guy.  The whole story is gradually unraveled by a woman in our time who eventually discovers her connection to that young girl.

Sepulcher isn’t a bad book but I cannot give it a better grade because of the complaints outlined above.

Grade: 6