Katharine Louise Mosse, OBE, was born on 20th October 1961. She is an English author and broadcaster and is best known for her 2005 novel Labyrinth, which has been translated into more than 37 languages and won the Richard & Judy Best Book Award in 2006. Kate published her first novel Eskimo Kissing in 1996, followed by Crucifix Lane in 1998.
Kate was born in West Sussex and lives in Chichester with her old school friend husband Greg. She was executive director of the Chichester Festival Theatre from 1998 to 2001.
In 1996 Kate co-founded the annual Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize, and from 2014, the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction), of which she is also the Honorary Director. The Prize celebrates international fiction throughout the world written by women
A regular guest on UK radio and television, Kate presented the BBC Four literary chat show Readers’ and Writers’ Roadshow and appears on the BBC Breakfast News and BBC2’s The Review Show. She is a guest presenter for A Good Read on BBC Radio 4 and writes a regular column for the book trade magazine The Bookseller. Kate is leading the campaign against the closure of the UK library service.
Kate Mosse was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to literature.
Probably the best known Kate Mosse books are the Languedoc Trilogy, although she has written a number of books and plays.
Labyrinth
In this extraordinary thriller, rich in the atmospheres of medieval and contemporary France, the lives of two women born centuries apart are linked by a common destiny. When Dr Alice Tanner discovers two skeletons during an archaeological dig in southern France, she unearths a link with an extraordinary past. Eight hundred years ago, on the night before a brutal civil war ripped apart Languedoc, a book was entrusted to Alais, a young herbalist and healer. Although she cannot understand the symbols and diagrams the book contains, Alais knows her destiny lies in protecting their secret, at all costs.
Sepulchre
This is the second novel in Kate’s Languedoc Trilogy. A timeslip adventure novel set in 19th century and contemporary France, it is about Tarot, about ghosts, about the power of music and place, about the relationship between the two great modern republics of the 20th century, France and America.
Citadel
The third and final novel in Kate’s Languedoc Trilogy tells the story of an all-female group of Resistance fighters in the south of France, codenamed ‘Citadel’. Led by Sandrine Vidal, they are fighting not only to liberate the Midi from Nazi Occupation as their forefathers and mothers, the Cathars, had seven hundred years earlier fought to protect their land from the invaders from the North, but also to protect an ancient secret that, if it fell into the wrong hands, could change the course of history. This is a fast paced adventure story of love and war, courage and sacrifice, about a brave group of women and the loyal men who love them.
Photo Copyright: Mark Rusher