When his mother dies of cancer, Will Stafford is left with her family's heirlooms - a sheet of riddles, a silver key and the mystery of what they unlock.

Unfortunately, these are meant to be passed only to female descendants, and Will is killed in a suspicious accident in the sixth chapter before he can solve anything.

In a convenient twist, Will's heart is donated to young Lucy King, who falls in love with her doctor - Will's brother Alex - and carries on the quest to decipher the family's secrets.

She claims she has also inherited Will's memories, which explains how she manages to quickly acquire vast amounts of esoteric knowledge related only to the enigma at hand.

Accompanied by their friends, Alex and Lucy travel to France and the United States in search of answers. Along the way, they are shadowed by dubious characters who want the key for their own nefarious ends and who erupt in inexplicable bouts of violence.

It turns out they are worshippers of John Dee, a 16th-century English mathematician, astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, ancestor of Will and Alex and the originator of the key.

Dee was noted for mixing science and magic - which is interesting, seeing that this novel has neither.

By the time the mystery is solved, it's hard to care. Hardie, a self-declared 'white witch', raises more questions than she answers.

She takes readers down a tedious path through the banal thoughts of her characters, who never seem to make real discoveries but rather get pages-long flashes of insight that require a working knowledge of hermeticism.

The Rose Labyrinth is Hardie's debut novel, and it shows.

Her earlier bibliography might well be required reading for a home economics class in Harry Potter's Hogwarts school. Titles include Love Elixirs: Titania's Book Of Romantic Potions and Titania's Crystal Ball: Now You Can See Your Future.

If you like this, read: The Rule Of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason (2005, $17.12 with GST, Books Kinokuniya). An ingenious thriller about two Princeton University students who set out to decipher a famously arcane Renaissance text.

The Rose Labyrinth
By Titania Hardie
Headline Review/ Hardcover/388 pages/
$30.98 with GST/Books Kinokuniya/**

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on Apr 6, 2008.