The Mystic Rose

The Mystic Rose by Stephen Lawhead is the final book of his Celtic Crusades trilogy, dealing with the retrieval of three of the most holy of relics, the lance used to pierce the side of Jesus as he was on the cross, a piece of the actual cross and, in this book the cup that Jesus used at the Last Supper. One relic for each generation, and in this book we follow the adventures of Cait, daughter of Duncan and granddaughter of Murdo, both of whom were featured in the other books.

This book did not stir my imagination quite the way the other two had, and I found myself reading it just to complete the trilogy. The characters were a little too lacking in depth to be believable, Cait was too forthright and modern to be a woman of the twelfth show more century, and the villain was to much over the top and relishing his power by acts that the church would never have condoned, particularly when it came to violence against nuns and archbishops.

I freely admit that I am not well versed in Christian theology but I found much of the mysticism mentioned in this story to be vague and clichéd. Perhaps it was simply that this trilogy was getting a little stale, but overall, I thought this was the weakest of the three books. show less

Concluding the "Celtic Crusades" trilogy - this book kind of had to be a grail quest really! Better than the second book, Lawhead recovers his sense of storytelling, but still I think the first of the series was the best. Lawhead writes action sequences very well, but the journeying I found a little too long winded.

In this story Cait, daughter of Duncan, son of Murdo Ranulfson, witnesses the murder of her father at the hands of a Knight Templer. She promises not to avenge him, but does not keep her vow - but before she can kill her father's murderer, she discovers an important document and steals it. This then sets in train a grail quest across medieval Europe.

Of course book three was about the Grail. Had to be. It's always interesting to me when a book manages to have God in it, or at least Christianity, and not piss me off. The secondary plot set in the 20th century...Totally freakin useless! Waste of time to read, doesn't further the plot and doesn't develop any.

I think I'm probably done with Lawhead.

This whole series was quite a let down for me, however, this book was probably the most enjoyable of the three. As frustrating as it was, I enjoyed the build-up to a potential relationship between Cait and Rognvald, and I enjoyed learning about historical events in a fiction sense.

The third book in the series better than the second book but not as good as the first.

You have to start at the beginning so go read the 'The Iron Lance".

Really vivid account of the Crusader experience and the Crucifixion.

not as good as 1st two but still ok