Labyrinth

With more than 500 audiobook titles to her credit, Golden Voice Wanda McCaddon, a.k.a. Donada Peters, is a sure bet to please listeners in this complex quest tale. The story revolves around 13th-century Alais and 21st-century Alice, bound together by a sacred trilogy of ancient books. Mysticism, ancient hieroglyphs, and secret societies add to the puzzle as Alais struggles to save the manuscripts and Alice wrestles with blackouts and memories reincarnated from someone else's past. Peters reads with gusto. The intelligence in her voice resonates in this story of the Crusades, religious persecution, murder, imprisonment, and torture. This smart book, enhanced by an accomplished reading by Peters, provides hours of engrossing listening. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

January 23, 2006
Mosse's page-turner takes readers on another quest for the Holy Grail, this time with two closely linked female protagonists born 800 years apart. In 2005, Alice Tanner stumbles into a hidden cave while on an archeological dig in southwest France. Her discovery—two skeletons and a labyrinth pattern engraved on the wall and on a ring—triggers visions of the past and propels her into a dangerous race against those who want the mystery of the cave for themselves. Alaïs, in the year 1209, is a plucky 17-year-old living in the French city of Carcassone, an outpost of the tolerant Cathar Christian sect that has been declared heretical by the Catholic Church. As Carcassonne comes under siege by the Crusaders, Alaïs's father, Bertrand Pelletier,entrusts her with a book that is part of a sacred trilogy connected to the Holy Grail. Guardians of the trilogy are operating against evil forces—including Alaïs's sister, Oriane, a traitorous, sexed-up villainess who wants the books for her own purposes. Sitting securely in the historical religious quest genre, Mosse's fluently written third novel (after Crucifix Lane)
may tantalize (if not satisfy) the legions of Da Vinci
Code
devotees with its promise of revelation about Christianity's truths. 8-city author tour.