Sepulchre Hardback - 2008

by Kate Mosse

From the author of the New York Times–bestsellingnovel Labyrinth comes another haunting taleof secrets, murder, and the occult set in bothnineteenth-century and twenty-first-century France.

In1891, young Léonie Vernier and her brother Anatole arrivein the beautiful town of Rennes-les-Bains, in southwestFrance. They've come at the invitation of their widowedaunt, whose mountain estate, Domain de la Cade, is famous inthe region. But it soon becomes clear that their aunt Isolde andthe Domain are not what Léonie had imagined. The villagersclaim that Isolde's late husband died after summoning a demonfrom the old Visigoth sepulchre high on the mountainside. Abook from the Domain's cavernous library describes the strangetarot pack that mysteriously disappeared following the uncle'sdeath. But while Léonie delves deeper into the ancient mysteriesof the Domain, a different evil stalks her family one which mayexplain why Léonie and Anatole were invited to the sinisterDomain in the first place.

More than a century later, Meredith Martin, an Americangraduate student, arrives in France to study the life of ClaudeDebussy, the nineteenth century French composer. In Rennesles-Bains, Meredith checks into a grand old hotel the Domainde la Cade. Something about the hotel feels eerily familiar, andstrange dreams and visions begin to haunt Meredith's wakinghours. A chance encounter leads her to a pack of tarot cardspainted by Léonie Vernier, which may hold the key to thistwenty-first century American's fate . . . just as they did to thefate of Léonie Vernier more than a century earlier.