Sepulchre - Kate Mosse

Audio read by Donada Peters

16 discs - I made it through 6 of them

2008 Penguin Audio

560 pgs. - I read 205

Adult - Switched back and forth between 1891 and the present

Historical Fiction & CRF

Goodreads Rating: 3.68

My Rating: 1 (Didn't like it)

Acquired through PBS

Set in France - Paris and the countryside

My comments: I listened attentively to the first six cds.  Since it takes place in France, the reader did a wonderful job using French accents, and I enjoyed her reading.  But the story dragged.  Switching back and forth in time, there are two protagonists.  The 1891 protagonist, Leonie - is a spoiled idiot.  The 2000 protagonist isn't too irritating (yet), but her primary interest - Claude Debussy - is of no interest to me. Ten more discs to go?  Sorry, life's not long enough.....

Goodreads:  In 1891, young Léonie Vernier and her brother Anatole arrive in the beautiful town of Rennes-les-Bains, in southwest France. They've come at the invitation of their widowed aunt, whose mountain estate, Domain de la Cade, is famous in the region. But it soon becomes clear that their aunt Isolde-and the Domain-are not what Léonie had imagined. The villagers claim that Isolde's late husband died after summoning a demon from the old Visigoth sepulchre high on the mountainside. A book from the Domain's cavernous library describes the strange tarot pack that mysteriously disappeared following the uncle's death. But while Léonie delves deeper into the ancient mysteries of the Domain, a different evil stalks her family-one which may explain why Léonie and Anatole were invited to the sinister Domain in the first place.
          More than a century later, Meredith Martin, an American graduate student, arrives in France to study the life of Claude Debussy, the nineteenth century French composer. In Rennesles- Bains, Meredith checks into a grand old hotel-the Domain de la Cade. Something about the hotel feels eerily familiar, and strange dreams and visions begin to haunt Meredith's waking hours. A chance encounter leads her to a pack of tarot cards painted by Léonie Vernier, which may hold the key to this twenty-first century American's fate . . . just as they did to the fate of Léonie Vernier more than a century earlier.

50. Night Film - Marisha Pessl

Audio read by Jake Weber

19 (! !) discs, 23 hours

2013, Random House Audio

602 pgs.

Adult Mystery/Thriller

Finished 11/10/13

Goodreads Rating: 3.89

My Rating:  Awesome (5) (It totally "took me away" for all 23 hours)

TPPL

Setting: NYC with a few forays a little north into NY state

My comments:  Wow.  This book was mesmerizing.  I listened to it, but also took a couple trips during the listening to the bookstore to peruse some of the actual pages.  There are many emails, photos, newspaper articles (etc.) that look like the real thing.  Once you realize, as you're listening, that the flow of the story has changed a bit, you can still listen without missing a single thing.  The story was complicated and interesting, keeping you guessing and wondering; the characters were interesting and pretty well fleshed out.   I loved learning all the new clues along with the protagonist, as if I were part of his inexperienced investigative team.  I loved wondering whether the occult was really involved, as did the protagonist.  It got a little slow at the end, when I thought the book should be done and Pessl didn't seem to want to end it.  I should have realized she had a reason.  Well worth 19 discs and 23 hours!  Added note:  I REALLY don't like the cover.

Goodreads Review:  A page-turning thriller for readers of Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, and Stieg Larsson, Night Film tells the haunting story of a journalist who becomes obsessed with the mysterious death of a troubled prodigy—the daughter of an iconic, reclusive filmmaker.

On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova—a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than thirty years.  For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova’s dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself.  Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawndeeper and deeper into Cordova’s eerie, hypnotic world.  The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.