Showing results by author "Kate Mosse" in All Categories

Jane Marple is an elderly lady from St Mary Mead who possesses an uncanny knack for solving even the most perplexing puzzles. Now, for the first time in 45 years, Agatha Christie’s beloved character returns to the page for a globe-trotting tour of crime and detection. Join Marple as she travels through her sleepy English village and around the world. In St Mary Mead, a Christmas dinner is interrupted by unexpected guests; the Broadway stage in New York City is set for a dangerous improvisation.

In a remote village near the English coast, residents gather in a misty churchyard. More than a decade into the 20th century, superstition still holds sway: It is St. Mark's Eve, the night when the shimmering ghosts of those fated to die in the coming year are said to materialize and amble through the church doors. Alone in the crowd is Constantia Gifford, the taxidermist's daughter. Twenty-two and unmarried, she lives with her father on the fringes of town, in a decaying mansion.

France, 1562. War sparks between the Catholics and Huguenots, dividing neighbors, friends, and family - meanwhile, 19-year-old Minou Joubert receives an anonymous letter at her father’s bookshop. Sealed with a distinctive family crest, it contains just five words: "She knows that you live." Before Minou can decipher the mysterious message, she meets a young Huguenot convert, Piet Reydon. Piet has a dangerous task of his own, and he will need Minou’s help if he is to stay alive.

May 1572: for 10 violent years the Wars of Religion have raged across France. Neighbours have become enemies, countless lives have been lost, and the country has been torn apart over matters of religion, citizenship and sovereignty. But now a precarious peace is in the balance and a royal wedding has been negotiated. It is a marriage that could see France reunited at last.

Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries is a celebration of unheard and under-heard women’s history. Within this book you’ll meet nearly 1000 women whose names deserve to be better known: from the Mothers of Invention and the trailblazing women at the Bar; Warrior Queens and Pirate Commanders; the women who dedicated their lives to the natural world or to medicine; those women of courage who resisted and fought for what they believed in to defend their families, their culture and their countries; to the unsung heroes of stage, screen and stadium.

A brand-new collection of short stories featuring the Queen of Crime’s legendary detective Jane Marple, penned by 12 remarkable best-selling and acclaimed authors. This collection of 12 original short stories, all featuring Jane Marple, will introduce the character to a whole new generation. Each author reimagines Agatha Christie’s Marple through their own unique perspective while staying true to the hallmarks of a traditional mystery.

August 1572: Minou Joubert and her husband, Piet, travel to Paris to attend a royal wedding that, after a decade of religious wars, is intended to finally bring peace between the Catholics and the Huguenots. Also in Paris is their oldest enemy, Vidal, in pursuit of an ancient relic that will change the course of history. Within days of the marriage, thousands will lie dead in the street, and Minou’s family will be scattered to the four winds....

France, 1942: While war blazes at the front lines of Europe, in the walled southern city of Carcassonne, nestled deep in the Pyrenees, a group of courageous women is engaged in an equally lethal battle. Like their ancestors who fought northern invaders 700 years before, these members of the French Resistance - code-named Citadel - fight to liberate their home from the Nazis. Led by a daring 18-year-old, Sandrine Vidal, and her elder sister, Marianne, the women of Citadel work quickly to sabotage their German occupiers, safeguard their neighbors and smuggle refugees over the mountains into neutral territory.

From the author of the New York Times best-selling novel Labyrinth comes another haunting tale of double crosses, murder, and the occult set in both 19th and 21st century France.

July 1209: in Carcassonne a 17-year-old girl is given a mysterious book by her father which he claims contains the secret of the true Grail. Although Alais cannot understand the strange words and symbols hidden within, she knows that her destiny lies in keeping the secret of the labyrinth safe.... July 2005: Alice Tanner discovers two skeletons in a forgotten cave in the French Pyrenees. Puzzled by the labyrinth symbol carved into the rock, she realises she's disturbed something that was meant to remain hidden. Somehow, a link to a horrific past - her past - has been revealed.

Bringing 16th century Languedoc vividly to life, Kate Mosse's The Burning Chambers is a gripping story of love and betrayal, mysteries and secrets; of war and adventure, conspiracies and divided loyalties....

When the violent Cape wind blows from the southeast, they say the voices of the unquiet dead can be heard whispering through the deserted valley. Suzanne Joubert, a Huguenot refugee from war-torn France, is here to walk in her cousin’s footsteps. Louise Reydon-Joubert, the notorious she-captain and pirate commander, landed at the Cape of Good Hope more than sixty years ago, then disappeared from the record as if she had never existed. Suzanne has come to find her — to lay the stories to rest. But all is not as it seems . . .

The Ghost Ship floats silently on the water, all guns silenced, all voices quiet. In the hold, the bodies of men who are dead or dying, those who hid. The waters off the Barbary Coast are home to more privateers than any other, and now, this ship’s hull is splintered, the sails tattered and, burnt, its gold coins and bullion seized as the spoils of war. On board is the Huguenot leader of the Siege of St Rochelle, forced to flee the city in 1628, and the legendary and feared commander of the ship, kidnapped as a child from the island of Tenerife.

In 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.

The Barbary Coast, 1621. A mysterious vessel floats silently on the water. It is known only as the Ghost Ship. For months it has hunted pirates to liberate those enslaved by corsairs, manned by a courageous crew of mariners from Italy and France, Holland and the Canary Islands. But the bravest among them are not who they seem. The stakes could not be higher. If arrested, they will be hanged for their crimes. Can they survive the journey and escape their fate?

In the winter of 1928, still seeking some kind of resolution to the horrors of World War I, Freddie is traveling through the beautiful but forbidding French Pyrenees. During a snowstorm, his car spins off the mountain road. Dazed, he stumbles through the woods, emerging in a tiny village, where he finds an inn to wait out the blizzard. There he meets Fabrissa, a lovely young woman also mourning a lost generation.

It is May 1706. Ana, a young Spanish woman, lives in a small town on the north-west coast of Tenerife with her mother and twin younger brothers. The town is in the shadow of a mighty volcano, which legend says has the devil living inside it. However, there has been no eruption for thousands of years, and no one believes it is a threat. One day, Ana notices that the air feels strange and heavy, that the birds have stopped singing. Tending the family vineyard, a sudden strange tremor in the earth frightens her.

In Carcassonne a young girl is given a mysterious book by her father which he claims contains the secret of the true Grail. Although Alais cannot understand the strange words and symbols hidden within, she knows that her destiny lies in protecting it.

Sussex, 1912. In a churchyard, villagers gather on the night when the ghosts of those who will die in the coming year are thought to be seen. Here, where the estuary leads out to the sea, superstitions still hold sway. Standing alone is the taxidermist's daughter. At 17, Constantia Gifford lives with her father in a decaying house: it is all that is left of Gifford's once world-famous museum of taxidermy. The stuffed animals that used to grace every parlour are out of fashion, leaving Gifford a disgraced and bitter man.

October 1891: A young girl, Léonie Verniern and her brother Anatole abandon the gas-lit streets of Paris for the sanctuary of the Domaine de la Cade, some miles south of the medieval city of Carcassone . But, in the ancient woods that surround the isolated country house, Léonie stumbles across a ruined Visigoth sepulchre - and a timeless mystery.