Sepulchre , Kate Mosse. Anyone reading this over-hyped claptrap? A clue - I HATE it!

[Zebedeedoodah]

I'm reading it for my reading group and I just can't get over how appallingly bad a writer she is - or how her editors can have let her get away with it (oh I know, did someone say 'Orange Prize'? ). What's really sad is that underneath all that purple prose, overwriting and 'look at me I've done my research' passages, there's quite a decent, if unoriginal, story begging to get out. Honestly, if I'd taken my editor's pencil to it, I'd have reduced it by 2 thirds and improved the book beyond recognition.

Right, I'm glad I got that off my chest, so does anyone care to agree or come to her defence?

I started to read it and gave up, was awful IMO.

I am reading Labyrinth (under sufferance for a book club) and I HATE it. Writing style is the same is Dan Brown - all internal thoughts italicised for emphasis. What a crock of shit - I will avoid Kate Mosse in the future.

Can't believe that she has been nominated for a prixe for her writing, just goes to show what a mockery the Orange prize is.

I read Labyrinthe for our book club and gave up after about 2 chpaters. It was dire.
Of course it was a "Richard and judy" book club book wasn't it.
If they stuck a "R&J Book Club" sticker on my address book it would become a best seller as well!

Oh it's way worse than Labyrinth which I read through ignorance. She does exactly the same thing with italics here, and also insists on having them all say something in French in italics natch, like eh bien followed by the effing translation! And then they continue in English. Oh, and then she doesn't translate stuff she should, just to show off.

And don't get me started on the heroines....

I didn't know about any book prizes? Which one? [shaock] However, she did establish the Orange prize...

I didn't like Labyrinth although the subject matter might have been interesting. It made me itch reading it. Honestly. I was horrible overwritten irritating stuff.

Not tried the other one. Won't bother.

Now, I liked Labyrinth, but found Sepulchre incredibly annoying and predictible. Everyone gets bumped off......well I didn't finish it all, but that what was seemed to be happening.....

Well I won't try the new one then if it's worse than Labyrinth

What I cannot get my head around, apart from the fact that Labyrinth was actually PRINTED and put in bookshops, is that it sold so many copies and there are people who rave about it.

I picked up a copy in Waterstones and stumbled through the first 10 pages of doggeral utterly horrified.

It's because she had a Richard and Judy book club sticker. like I said below, my address book would sell millions if had one of those

I actually read Labyrinth BEFORE R&J did it. As a self-confessed intellectual snob that's what STOPS me reading a book. I'd stumbled across it on the internet somewhere and I liked the premise of the storyline. Boy, what a mistake.

Just about managed to read it all. And yes, it's shit. I quite liked Labyrinth though

I quite liked Labyrinth in a read-in-the-bath kind of way, but I found Sepulchre unutterably dull. An editor should have taken a filletting knife to it. The characters had potential, the setting was good and it was well researched, it could have been a fascinating read. Instead it was overlong, heavy-handed, self-indulgent, boring, etc etc. Also I was conscious of the poverty of the writing all the way through - one of those books you want to go through with a highlighter pen.

I thought about Labyrinthe exactly what the OP said about this book.

Which is why I won't read another one of hers.

Life's too short.

Did anyone else think that when she wrote the final bit of Labyrinthe inside the cave she was thinking what a great film it would make rather than writing for the reader iykwim?

I hated Labyrinth so much that I would need to be paid substantial sums of money to read anything she writes ever again.

40+ exactly! It was really obvious to me that she was doing that.

It made me hate it just a little bit more.

I'm glad it's not just me! It really annoys me when someone recommends a book and then you feel as though you've wasted part of your life reading it!

i get influenced by other people rave reviews so i buy and then discover i hate them eg Atonement, lovely bones, talk about kevin, memory keeper wife

ahhh al rubbish all time lost that i will never get back

I remember reading Labyrinth and being simply astounded by the difference between the rave reviews on the covers, and the tripe that lurked between them. Though I did actually finish it, more fool me. I thought it might get better. Sigh.

Wasn't Kate Mosse something big in publishing before she turned her hand to writing? Maybe everyone was too polite to tell her that her book required large chunks surgically removed, like you say, Zebedeedoodah.

I read Labyrinth, it was so disappointing after the reviews I had read, the plot was predictable and the standard of writing was surprisingly poor.

I finished it because I was stuck on a long train journey with nothing else to read.

I don't trust Richard & Judy their tastes seem very different to mine.

this is rubbish I have stopped reading it

I read labyrinth and only finished it because I was on holiday and had limited reading material. I thought it was dreadful and swore never to read anything by her ever again.

i saw it in the bookshop and thought a it was written by kate moss and b it was recommended by richard and judy so thankful walked on by

those richard and judy stickers are handy actually

they say you'll hate this book

house at riverton was my lesson learnt