4 stars out of 5
When multi-million selling author Titania Hardie’s latest project The Rose Labyrinth landed on my desk I was to say the least surprised. Gone were the beautifully packaged ‘lifestyle books’ that helped to put Titania on the map back in the ’90s. Instead I found that those suede-covered gems that made Hardie into an overnight guru, sought after by the rich and the famous, had been replaced by elegantly written intellectual literary fiction. In one equally well-packaged leap it seemed that Hardie had gone from ‘lifestyle writer’ to bona fide novelist.
The novel itself is a hybrid of sorts, combining a mystery story and the physical puzzle cards that go with it. At a time in publishing where the likes of Dan Brown and Kate Mosse seem to churn out their latest novels in accordance with contractual obligations and deadlines it is refreshing to find an author so concerned with the integrity of her work.
Testimony to this authorial dedication is the labyrinthine journey that the novel has taken from a mere idea to the book it is today. Hardie tells of the project’s four-year development as it was batted between publishers due in part to her stoic refusal to change the message of the book, before resting in hands of Headline Review.
Hardie certainly does not underestimate her reader: the plot is an intricate combination of mystery, intrigue and love. The architecture of the novel is attractively ambitious with the reader in the hands of an author of considerable imagination, perpetually journeying between past and present both literally and metaphorically. The novel’s range and quality of research is equally impressive, as Hardie oscillates from the scientific to the mystic with poise.
The Rose Labyrinth is certainly not just another beach-read, far from it. It is a novel with a conscience, a novel whose overriding message is one of tolerance and understanding in a world fraught with division and pain. Hardie is clear that in the arguable cultural quagmire that is our world her novel was to be different. It stands out as ‘a beacon of hope’ in a time disillusioned by angry belief, requiring more from us as reader than mere acceptance whilst electing not to harrow us with tales of abuse and suffering. A novel for iconographers and romantics alike.
