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The Rose Labyrinth

2.85 of 5 stars 2.85 · rating details · 1,410 ratings · 270 reviews

From bestselling British author Titania Hardie comes a mystical fiction debut that takes readers on a romantic journey from Elizabethan England to modern-day London where a centuries-old secret awaits.

Before his death in 1609, Queen Elizabeth's spiritual consultant, astrologer, and scientific advisor John Dee hid many of his most astonishing written works, believing that t...more

Hardcover, 400 pages

Published 2008 by Headline Review

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Jan 18, 2013 Aryn rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, historical

30 pages in I realized that sometimes, just sometimes, you have to make a decision about what to waste your life with. This book? Not worth my time. The writing is horrendous and it's a clear DaVinci Code piggy-back. Basically: that's enough of this nonsense.

Also, I detest leaving books unfinished. I can count on one hand the number of books I've done this with. I actually had to create a new Goodreads shelf for this book, of books that are 'Life Wasting Never Finish.' Now I feel weird and uncom...more

17 likes · like · see review

Dec 11, 2008 Sarah rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-fiction, mystery, suspense, historical, contemporary, british

There's a point in The Great Muppet Caper where Lady Holiday goes on and on about her brother Nicky and his rapacious background. Miss Piggy questions here, "Why are you telling me all this?" To which Lady Holiday responds with something like, "It's plot exposition, it must go somewhere." And you're probably wondering why I'm starting a review of The Rose Labyrinth this way...

Hardie is like Lady Holiday. She explains and gives historical background and then explains some more. And I kept thinkin...more

13 likes · like · see review

Oct 30, 2011 Hannah marked it as did-not-finish

Did not finish.

This is one of those books I wanted to love (and frankly should have loved). But for whatever reason, Hardie's writing was so difficult for me to read - like trying to swim through a pool of caramel. I got mentally exhausted reading a few paragraphs (put it down for a few hours and tried again - with same results).

Can't explain it, but this one just wasn't for me, and it makes me sad :(

5 stars for a beautiful cover, though.

5 likes · like · see review

Jun 19, 2008 Fraemone rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: no one

i don't even know why i persisted on this one for so long. it didn't work as a conspiracy novel, romance or historical saga. very tedious stuff.

6 likes · like · see review

Jan 01, 2010 Gerald Sinstadt rated it 1 of 5 stars

I dislike abandoning a book half-read. Having recently done that with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I was doubly reluctant in this case. Perhaps I should have read a few more pages in the bookshop. I might then have become aware of cardboard characters acting improbably, and dialogue contrived to deliver the results of research but unlike like speech that ever issued from a human mouth. Research is one thing, creative writing is another.

It would be unfair on those who enjoy this kind of thin...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 03, 2009 Sharon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction

With "The Rose Labyrinth," Titania Hardie enters the rather lofty ranks of Umberto Eco and Katherine Neville as she employs historical documents and personae to create a suspense story that I believe will become a classic.

Modern-day descendants of Dr. John Dee find themselves hounded by a Christian Zionist/Theocratic group that believes their inherited treasures include documents that will allow them to unleash "the Rapture" and leave more moderate believers (as well as non-Christians) behind to...more

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Jan 22, 2009 Jan rated it 1 of 5 stars

This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen; however, it is one of the dumbest books I have ever read.

It is a Da Vinci Code kind of thing, where a family has sole responsibility to keep the secret of the ages. Through hints and visions and discovered symbols the secret is understood...but not really. The love story part of it made me want to throw up. The girl receives a new heart, falls in love with her doctor and two weeks after the operation she's in bed with him. PLEASE!!! And h...more

8 likes · like · see review

Dec 28, 2008 Heather rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of woo-woo romance

Shelves: fantasy, mystery-or-suspense, own-fl

Okay...so what we have here is part Da Vinci Code-style puzzle-solving, part FATE FATE FATE ROMANCE FATE FATE!!1!!, part jarring combination of "it was all just smoke and mirrors" with honest-to-goodness rips in the fabric of space-time, and part woo-woo about heart transplants and cellular memory, all tied up in a big bow of "what the hell was the point anyway?" at the end.

And for those of you who are sick of Catholic conspiracy books, here's an Evangelical consipiracy instead.

And, of course, e...more

5 likes · like · see review

Mar 26, 2009 Adele rated it 3 of 5 stars

A mystery story set in France and England with a trip to America thrown in.All about trying to solve a series of riddles left by relatives over the centuries to get to the treasure which I didnt really care about in the end.Thie booked seemed very disjointed at times.

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Mar 16, 2009 Michele rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is at least the third book I have read in the past decade that deals with something to do with Dr. John Dee, advisor to Queen Elizabeth I and believed to be the original 007. Ms. Hardie is obviously fascinated by this renaissance man and attributes much more to him than has been previously alluded in other texts and histories.

She has an interesting premise, that of a familial legacy passed down over 400 years through a female line. She also touches on the subject of organ memory in a trans...more This is at least the third book I have read in the past decade that deals with something to do with Dr. John Dee, advisor to Queen Elizabeth I and believed to be the original 007. Ms. Hardie is obviously fascinated by this renaissance man and attributes much more to him than has been previously alluded in other texts and histories.

She has an interesting premise, that of a familial legacy passed down over 400 years through a female line. She also touches on the subject of organ memory in a transplant operation. She has many good ideas and it seems like a good setup for a great story. The only problem I have with her book is that she takes a good mystery and inserts, through a satellite character, a huge political diatribe.

I understand she has a need to make certain that everyone is aware of her political feelings. However, this portion of the book would be better submitted to the op-ed page at a major newspaper than in the middle of a book. This really killed the book for me. I found it annoying that she would interrupt the story to slam everyone and anyone she disagrees with.

She eventually gets back to the story, but by then, she had soured my mood for it. Everything in the final quarter of the story seemed to be more political, less mystical, mysterious and romantic. I was more than a little ticked off. She could have had a great read but instead has a mediocre to good read.

The publisher has indulged the writer by adding about 34 pages as an insert. These are meant to be a puzzle you are to solve. The author arrogantly asks you to try and solve the puzzle and lets you know that the principal characters do not do so in the book. I wish she wouldn't do that. It is very annoying to start a book with the knowledge that there is no complete resolution/solution at the end. Why bother??

The quotes on the puzzle pages are heavily Shakespeare based, but then go into something more 20th century. She spends a lot of time in the story running you through these clues but, for something that has passed down through at least four centuries, it seems that the bulk of it was written out in the 16th-17th centuries. After that, no one has seemed to add anything of merit until the 20th century. This seems highly unlikely, given her setup.

To sum up: Could have been a great read but too many pretentious and silly things combined to make it only mediocre-to-good. (less)

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Jan 25, 2009 Malcolm rated it 3 of 5 stars

As a spider weaves its web and as a soul (personified as Ariadne) figuratively weaves its body, Titania Hardie has woven a complex story in her inventive novel "The Rose Labyrinth."

Like the "two natures" (physical and psychic) of alchemy, this quest story overlays the lives of modern-day characters Alex and Lucy on a wide-ranging, interlocking web of esoteric philosophy and practice. Alex Sterling's family has been the keeper of the along-ago buried secrets of the Elizabethan astrologer and alch...more As a spider weaves its web and as a soul (personified as Ariadne) figuratively weaves its body, Titania Hardie has woven a complex story in her inventive novel "The Rose Labyrinth."

Like the "two natures" (physical and psychic) of alchemy, this quest story overlays the lives of modern-day characters Alex and Lucy on a wide-ranging, interlocking web of esoteric philosophy and practice. Alex Sterling's family has been the keeper of the along-ago buried secrets of the Elizabethan astrologer and alchemist John Dee. Before she died, Alex's mother intuitively understood the import of these secrets, but no one knew the location of the manuscripts and artifacts themselves.

When Alex's brother Will starts looking for them, he discovers that researchers of evil intent have a head start; in fact, they have been watching the family for years and now are on a short timetable to retrieve the secrets at any cost.

Hardie places Alex and Lucy on a two-fold quest. On one hand, they must discover the location of John Dee's hidden treasure before the bad guys find it. On the other, they must penetrate Dee's philosophy itself in order to understand what exactly they are looking for.

Students of pagan beliefs and/or of alchemy, astrology, hermetica and Rosicrucian philosophies--as well as Christian symbolism--will probably be fascinated by Hardie's wide-ranging and well-researched material. The characters, especially Alex and Lucy, are well-drawn and the dangerous race to find the hidden treasure is intricate and compelling.

The focus on the labyrinth set into the floor of Chartres Cathedral is especially apt, for the maze has both a Christian and an alchemical significance. Christians have long used the labyrinth as a figurative pilgrimage to Jerusalem; in addition, as the famous, enigmatic alchemist known under his Fulcanelli pseudonym has written, the architecture and mazes of 12th-16th century Gothic cathedrals are ciphers of the "Great Work" (alchemy).

In spite of a creative mix of esoteric philosophy and treasure quest, "The Rose Labyrinth" bends under the weight of the same structural problems that befell "The Da Vinci Code." Like Brown's characters, Hardie's characters are secondary to the philosophical riddle they must solve. Alex, Lucy, Simon, and Grace spend a great deal of time (and words) discussing, interpreting and speculating about Dee's work. In part, this advances the plot. But, it's also a wordy device for instructing readers about the meaning of it all.

Like Brown's characters in their Grail quest, Hardie's characters are the living, breathing embodiment of their mission. The personal and precise synchronicity of Alex and Lucy to Dee's secrets, as opposed to a spiritual and figurative connection, is highly contrived. Some readers will also suspect the author's intent behind one character's "need" to indict all fundamentalist Christians while explaining the non-universal right-wing views of the novel's antagonists.

Readers who have enjoyed such esoteric quest novels as "The Da Vinci Code" may yet find enough in "The Rose Labyrinth" to make it an interesting experience in spite of the large holes in Hardie's tapestry. In that regard, it can be very cautiously recommended.(less)

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Aug 06, 2012 Kristen rated it 3 of 5 stars

I had a hard time deciding how many stars to give this book.

I found the plot excessively complicated and somewhat overly-dramatic, full of red herrings, Rapture nuts, angels, and visions of John Dee and William Shakespeare alternating with the current day events that included abductions and hidden agendas in the quest for the answers to the puzzle left by John Dee.

However, offestting the over-wrought drama of the "quest" was the group of characters in the current-day part of the story. I really...more

1 like · like · see review

Aug 04, 2012 Stacey rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2012

I really struggled with how many stars to give this book. There was some aspects to it that I really enjoyed, I love a good historical quest with a bit of romance thrown in for good measure. However, there were some parts that I just really felt did nothing for the story and if anything made it more difficult to follow. I felt that the clues of the quest became far far too complicated and involved far too many long winded explanations that were really difficult to follow. I appreciate that if it...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 04, 2012 Billy rated it 2 of 5 stars

A lot of information, very little else,

This book started very well. The first 200-or-so pages were excellent and I had high hopes for the novel. Hardie's writing was exceptional until about half way through. The second half of the book dashed all hopes of the book being a worthwhile read. A summary is difficult because of the amount of information covered, but here's my best attempt. A woman receives a heart transplant and the donor is a man who was unknowingly connected to a secret society. The...more A lot of information, very little else,

This book started very well. The first 200-or-so pages were excellent and I had high hopes for the novel. Hardie's writing was exceptional until about half way through. The second half of the book dashed all hopes of the book being a worthwhile read. A summary is difficult because of the amount of information covered, but here's my best attempt. A woman receives a heart transplant and the donor is a man who was unknowingly connected to a secret society. The bad guys want the secret because they believe it will help to bring about the rapture and Armageddon. There is a whole lot more to it, but it is just so convoluted when all is said and done.

The information involved here is really just too much for one work, in my humble opinion. The book touches on the work of John Dee, Shakespeare, and Giordano Bruno, Rosicrucian mysteries, biblical end-times, and a multitude of other easily 'controversial' topics. The author had so much to cover that she was stuck having her characters explain arcane or obscure information in very unbelievable conversation; each of the characters speaking as if they were giving a symposium on the topic of the moment, ultimately bogging down the story. It just isn't believable; these people, some doctors, some journalists, even a kid, are all terribly enlightened about some of the most obscure and unrelated historical and mythical minutiae that it just comes off as completely unbelievable (bad conversations and excessive talk about things that even the most enlightened don't know off the top of their heads). A book should suspend disbelief and that is where this one really failed. The author obviously spent a lot of time researching the topics and I can't help but feel that she would have better served her readers by creating more than one story from the mountain of knowledge she acquired.

The ultimate problem that arises is that much of what is opened early in the book is never closed by the end of the book. Figures from history that are supposed to play in to the story are just dropped from the tale. Fictional characters are brought in to the story late or lost for the majority of the story but have a part to play in the outcome. Worst of all is the fact that a story like this, which weaves present day and past to create a mystery, can't survive without the past and about half way through, the past events all but drop from the story.

I don't think I could recommend this book. A shame really. Had the book delivered on what was offered in the first half, it could have been an amazing work. As it is, it just peters out with no climax, no real revelation or discovery, no closure.

As to claims of a DaVinci Code connection, I don't really see it; though I will offer if the 2nd half of the story were as good as the 1st, this could have been a lot better than Brown's work.
Issues about the portrayal of Christians are irrelevant (or the result of overly defensive Christians) to me as the book doesn't attack any religious group; the bad guys just happen to be extremist Christians. I honestly don't understand (and I am a believer) why Christians take issue with the book.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Nov 29, 2011 Mirjam rated it 3 of 5 stars

An Interesting read.
Not entirely sure what to think of it on all counts as there are many angles to this book.
I enjoied the story of it for sure, a good bit of the esoterics are way over my head but thanks to Google i have learned a lot of terms i had never come across before.
There is one thing that puzzled me though.
If i understand right Miss Hardie is trying to bring a message across, religious tolerance, i`m all for that.
Yet her principal characters don`t seem to have that tolerance for the g...more

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Nov 02, 2011 Alayne Bushey rated it 3 of 5 stars

I don't even know where to begin with this one. A woman named Lucy needs a heart transplant, which she gets. She then becomes involved with her doctor, Alex. Somewhere along the way they're pulled into a mystery that involves Alex's brother, Will, John Dee (circa the original Queen Elizabeth's time), riddles, roses, labyrinths in churches, angels, Shakespeare, and the Rapture. If you can make sense of the plot and it's circumnavigations, then by all means, have at it, my friends. For me, it was...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 05, 2010 Sienna rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, alchemy-in-fiction

Oh, man. I've been so entrenched in academic texts for the past year that this is the first book I grabbed — because its author's name is Titania, obviously — at the fabulous Arty Bees in Wellington earlier this week. A quick glance at the back revealed John Dee's name, and I was sold. The Rose Labyrinth has been marketed to reading groups, and I'm pretty sure these hypothetical groups could only permit X chromosomes, because love-making scenes refer to the female protagonist's (tiny!) body as s...more

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Aug 31, 2009 Aliza rated it 1 of 5 stars

Reading any of the other comments made by others would have been good before I started this book...because then I wouldn't have even bothered reading it. It wasn't the worst book I've ever read...but that isn't high praise is it?
The clues to the mystery in the book could have been so much more interesting if they would have been something that I could relate to. Or if the characters had experienced their "aha" moment with us. Instead we are left to find out things as they are summarizing things...more

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Jan 05, 2012 Christine rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I suppose I'll start off by saying the book wasn't awful. For an author's first book, it was rather an impressive theory.

The writing itself of the book isn't bad, but the book itself isn't enjoyable for a few reasons. Mainly, the author couldn't seem to decide what genre she wanted the book. Is it history? Romance? Fiction? Mystery? It's a bit of all of these, all thrown together into one book, as if she had several different ideas, couldn't decide what to choose, so she just threw them all toge...more

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Jul 20, 2009 Gail rated it 3 of 5 stars

Dr Dee, the great Elizabethan scientist, magician, mystic and advisor to Queen Elizabeth sets the stage for modern day action in 1609. In modern times, Will inherits a mysterious legacy from his mother, walks the Chartres labyrinth, and has flashes of insight. Before he can solve the mystery of his legacy as a descendent of Dr. Dee, he is killed. His brother, a doctor, has a patient, Lucy King -- a heart transplant patient -- who has similar insights.

Love, mystery, magic, puzzles, and a long tim...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Jo rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

15th August 2010

Well, I finished this book because I am not a quitter, but oh dear! What a load of drivel. I have a good imagiation, I really enjoy history and a good puzzle, I am not however a classical Greek scholar, a mathematician or clairvoyant, all of which would be the mimimum requirement to be able to follow the proceedings in this flight of fancy. It is almost as if the author is in on the secret with the characters and their aim is to exclude the reader by keeping the clues to themselv...more

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Aug 01, 2011 Laura rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, historic-fiction

I really wanted to like this book. As a rule, I'm fond of anything that has to do with conspiracy theories, history, grails, Shakespeare, and labyrinths. I tried really hard to like it. I gave it every benefit of the doubt, but... I just couldn't like it. The characters were very shallow. None of them had any personality, other than being "very good people." Even their flaws were written off as aspects of their goodness, like saying "I pay too much attention to detail" when asked to talk about y...more

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Apr 14, 2011 Mookyzook rated it 4 of 5 stars

OK I read this before I even knew of this site but I think some of the reviews here are unfair. It was I agree a very difficult book to follow. There was a lot of information which was obviously reasonably researched but as most of the subjects included were of interest to me I ploughed on through it. If you were expecting a Dan Brown this was never going to be it, thank goodness for that. Titania did not have to steal all her ideas directly from other authors.unlike Dan Brown,
I'll also agree th...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Jennifer rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: horrible

Oh my goodness, do not waste your time.
I was in the market for just a fun fluffy novel and while I could have been pleasently surprised that this had more to offer, I was not.
First of all, it seems like it was written by three different people. You had the romance plot, the intricate puzzle plot which never really got explained unless you took more time to figure them out in the back, and then there was the rant against Ratpturists and really Christianity as a whole. Which was a little extreme....more

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Jul 20, 2011 Galadriel Johnson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: must-read-again

I was skeptical about liking this book. I bought it on impulse and set it aside for a few months to read other things. After lending it to my uncle who read it and returned it without any hints I decided to take it to work. I read there when we aren't busy. I was not invested in actually reading it until a few chapters in. I was suddenly unable to put the blasted thing down. When I did put it down I couldn't manage to think about anything else. Full of mystery and myth as well as modern romance...more

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Jan 19, 2011 Heavenscribe added it

I actually threw this book in the trash because halfway through what I thought was a mystery/romance turned into a Christian-bashing lecture book. I know I'm not the only one whose beliefs have been misconstrued in a book but it's hard to read badly written arguments that berate your faith and aren't based in truth. Christians believing in the end times are painted as radicals who await a "bloodthirsty messiah." A group of bad religious leaders who have written best-selling books about the end t...more

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Oct 10, 2010 Jean Marie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-thriller

I was extremely nervous about starting this book because of how lop sided the reviews are. It seems that you either loved it or hated it and I was scared I would hate it. And while there were definitely areas of the story that could have been improved, I rather enjoyed it. I really loved the character developement and the overall storyline. Again, this is another book I feel that rushes the end a bit. Not nearly as much as some of the other books I've read this year, but Hardie's deliberate stor...more

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Jan 25, 2009 Cathy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Before sitting down to read The Rose Labyrinth, do yourself a favor and buy a strong-scented rose. By the time you've read the first 50 pages, you'll crave the smell. Is Rose Labyrinth a good book? It is a very pretty book, with hardback novel and cryptic clues combined in a lovely box, covered in (you guessed it) roses. The characters are also very pretty -- not one isn't attractive, eloquent, and clever. Their effortless ability to call up everything from Shakespeare sonnets to Rumi's verses,...more

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Mar 11, 2013 Irina rated it 3 of 5 stars

In my opinion it was a great book, talking about real facts transposed in a fictional world. The action lag to show untill the first quarter of the book. We see that Will dies (which at the begining seemed to be the principal character), while Lucy manages through a heart operation (later we find out that she received Will's heart). She is falling for Alex, Will's brother. A new character, Calvin, fills in wondering about an ancient key and a well guarded secret. Starting here the action seems t...more

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Dec 03, 2009 Bry rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, historical-fiction, mystery, art, rubbish, thriller

Bought this on a whim at Murder by the Book, and it seemed pretty interesting in a da Vinci Code kind of way. After reading some of the reviews I am a little leery of it though.

I didn't help that before the book even starts the author invites you to go to the end of the novel to try and solve all the clues yourself, and then tells you that even that characters don't figure it out. I like closure, and she just basically told me there won't be any...

*** Update 11.24.09 About 100 pages in and its...more

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Quotes from The Rose Labyrinth

“I am what I am, and what I am is what I am. I have a will to be what I am, and what I will be is only what I am. If I have a will to be, I will to be no more than what I was. If I was what I am willed to be, yet they ever will be wondering what I am or what I ever was. I want to change the Wall, and make my will. ” — 8 people liked it

“Having declared a passion for his wildness, she had sought from the beginning to tame him.” — 5 people liked it

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