"Seduction" by M.J. Rose~Author Interview & Necklace Contest!!

SYNOPSIS: From the author of The Book of Lost Fragrances comes a haunting novel about a grieving woman who discovers the lost journal of novelist Victor Hugo, awakening a mystery that spans centuries.

In 1843, novelist Victor Hugo’s beloved nineteen-year-old daughter drowned. Ten years later, Hugo began participating in hundreds of séances to reestablish contact with her. In the process, he claimed to have communed with the likes of Plato, Galileo, Shakespeare, Dante, Jesus—and even the Devil himself. Hugo’s transcriptions of these conversations have all been published. Or so it was believed.

Recovering from her own losses, mythologist Jac L’Etoile arrives on the Isle of Jersey—where Hugo conducted the séances—hoping to uncover a secret about the island’s Celtic roots. But the man who’s invited her there, a troubled soul named Theo Gaspard, has hopes she’ll help him discover something quite different—Hugo’s lost conversations with someone called the Shadow of the Sepulcher.

What follows is an intricately plotted and atmospheric tale of suspense with a spellbinding ghost story at its heart, by one of America’s most gifted and imaginative novelists.


PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK:

Publication Date: May 7, 2013
Atria Books
Hardcover; 384p
ISBN-10: 1451621507


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

M.J. Rose is the international best selling author of eleven novels and two non-fiction books on marketing. Her fiction and non-fiction has appeared in many magazines and reviews including Oprah Magazine. She has been featured in the New York Times, Newsweek, Time, USA Today and on the Today Show, and NPR radio. Rose graduated from Syracuse University, spent the '80s in advertising, has a co

mmercial in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and since 2005 has run the first marketing compa

ny for authors -

Authorbuzz.com. The television series PAST LIFE, was based on Rose's novels in the Renincarnationist series. She is one of the founding board members of International Thriller Writers and runs the blog- Buzz, Balls & Hype. She is also the co-founder of Peroozal.com and BookTrib.com.

Rose lives in CT with her husband the musician and composer, Doug Scofield, and their very spoiled and often photographed dog, Winka.

For more information on M.J. Rose and her novels, please visit her WEBSITE. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.


AUTHOR INTERVIEW:


A BOOKISH LIBRARIA IS PLEASED TO HOST AN INTERVIEW WITH MS ROSE!!!

Welcome M. J., and thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions for your many fans on our blog today.  I especially appreciate this opportunity. 

1) First of all, please tell us a special something about what makes you “tick.”  When you aren’t writing, what are you doing? (Aside from being a dad/mom)

 

No dad or momJ I’m pretty boring – what makes me tic is work though. I love to read and watch movies and travel and cook. But when I’m not writing I’m usually running AuthorBuzz.com which is the ad agency I own.

 

2) You chose a specific genre, a place and time to write about, what made you choose it?

Because it fascinated me. I love to write about what I want to learn about.

 

3) Bronte or Austen?  Hemingway or Hawthorne?  Why?

All of them really. I wouldn’t know how to choose. Each was such a wonderful storyteller with such a great voice and so good at evoking a time and place and world to escape into.

 

4) In your opinion, what makes a book a great one?

If you can’t stop turning the pages makes a book good – if when its over you can’t stop thinking about it  - it’s very good and if you want to re-read it – it’s great.

 

5) Which author(s) most influenced your love of books from childhood?

Frances Hodgson Burnett.

 

6) Read any good books in the past 6 months?

Yes, so many.

The Twelfth Enchantment by David Liss, Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell, The Comfort of Lies by Randy Susan Meyers, The Lost Wife by Alyson Richmond and The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley

7) Choose 4 guests from any era for dinner.  Who would they be and what would you choose for a topic of conversation?

 

Monet, Picasso, Georgia O’Keefe and Daphne Du Maurier and the topic would be yearning.

 

8) Which of your characters is most like you?

None of them that I am aware of – I really write to get away from me.

 

9) If you could cast your book for a movie, who would you choose?

I’m so bad at this – I never can answer it because my characters are too real to me.

 

10) Worst habit you have?

I worry.

 

11) How much research did you do before and during writing?

Endless. I researched the book for a full year before writing it and kept researching the whole time.

 

12) Psychologists tell us the thing we think we’d most like to grow up to be when we’re ten years old is our avocation.  What did you want to be?

 

A writer and a painter.

 

 

No wonder your books are so fascinating, Ms Rose, you are, too!  I would love to sneak into that dinner party in particular.  Thank you for taking time to be with us today.

 

For more on her book "Seduction" and to read my recent review click here:  http://abookishlibraria.blogspot.com/2013/02/seduction-by-m-j-rose.html


This interview is brought to you in association with Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.  Please find more on the book and author here:

 

 http://www.hfvirtualbooktours.com


                                      CONTEST!!!!

To win this beautiful Victorian choker reminiscent of "Seduction"
just:

1. Put the book on your To Be Read shelf on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15802432-seduction

-You must leave me your email to confirm so I can check your Goodreads

OR

2. Pre-order SEDUCTION: http://mjrose.com/books/seduction.asp?BookVar=Praise

 

- If you pre-order SEDUCTION, please send your receipt to mjrosewriter@gmail.com.

 

 

 

Please let me know in comments if you're part of the competion just for fun!

 

Good luck and thanks for your participation!!!


Deborah/TheBookishDame

 

 

"Seduction" by M. J. Rose

SUMMARY :

In 1843, novelist Victor Hugo’s beloved nineteen-year-old daughter drowned. Ten years later, Hugo began participating in hundreds of seances to reestablish contact with her. In the process, he claimed to have communed with the likes of Plato, Galileo, Shakespeare, Dante, Jesus—and even the Devil himself. Hugo’s transcriptions of these conversations have all been published. Or so it was believed.

Recovering from her own losses, mythologist Jac L’Etoile arrives on the Isle of Jersey—where Hugo conducted the seances—hoping to uncover a secret about the island’s Celtic roots. But the man who’s invited her there, a troubled soul named Theo Gaspard, has hopes she’ll help him discover something quite different—Hugo’s lost conversations with someone called the Shadow of the Sepulcher.

What follows is an intricately plotted and atmospheric tale of suspense with a spellbinding ghost story at its heart, by one of America’s most gifted and imaginative novelists.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK:

Published by:  Atria Books

Pages:

Genre:  Historical Fiction

More about the author here:  M. J. Rose
Preorder for May, 2013:  Barnes & Noble

 

 

 

SOMETHING ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

 

 

 

 

M.J. Rose, is the international bestselling author of 12 novels;Lip Service, In Fidelity, Flesh Tones, Sheet Music, Lying in Bed, The Halo Effect, The Delilah Complex, The Venus Fix,The Reincarnationist, The Memorist, The Hypnotist, and The Book of Lost Fragrances.
Rose is also the co-author with Angela Adair Hoy of How to Publish and Promote Online, and with Doug Clegg of Buzz Your Book.
She is a founding member and board member of International Thriller Writers and the founder of the first marketing company for authors: AuthorBuzz.com. She runs two popular blogs; Buzz, Balls & Hype and Backstory.
Getting published has been an adventure for Rose who self-published Lip Service late in 1998 after several traditional publishers turned it down. Editors had loved it, but didn't know how to position it or market it since it didn't fit into any one genre.
Frustrated, but curious and convinced that there was a readership for her work, she set up a web site where readers could download her book for $9.95 and began to seriously market the novel on the Internet.
After selling over 2500 copies (in both electronic and trade paper format) Lip Service became the first e-book and the first self-published novel chosen by the LiteraryGuild/Doubleday Book Club as well as being the first e-book to go on to be published by a mainstream New York publishing house.
Rose has been profiled in Time magazine, Forbes, The New York Times, Business 2.0, Working Woman, Newsweek and New York Magazine.
Rose has appeared on The Today Show, Fox News, The Jim Lehrer NewsHour, and features on her have appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and abroad, including USAToday, Stern, L'Official, Poets and Writers and Publishers Weekly.
Rose graduated from Syracuse University and spent the '80s in advertising. She was the Creative Director of Rosenfeld Sirowitz and Lawson and she has a commercial in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.
She lives in Connecticut with Doug Scofield, a composer, and their very spoiled dog, Winka

THIS IS A TRAILER ABOUT "THE BOOK OF LOST FRAGRANCES" but I thought it was a good introduction into the mind of MJ Rose:

 

THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

 

This is my first M.J. Rose book.  I say that because I know it will not be the last I read of her books.  I missed out on her first book, "...Lost Fragrances," and I hope to correct that asap.  Her style is heady and gothic and has just the right blend of the exotic to keep me on my toes.  I enjoyed reading "Seduction," but I don't think it's for everyone.

 

M.J. Rose is nothing if not a visual author.  Her story is beautifully painted with every note rising in technicolor off the pages.  In addition, her added pieces on fragrance and psychology just make her book a treasure trove.  I found the story somewhat an average one at times, but the magical details around it were just mesmerizing.  I stayed with it because I couldn't resist knowing about the seances, the ghosts, the tapestries, the perfumes, and the reincarnations!

 

A ghost story in nature, this one is edged with reincarnation and mysteries of druids and such.  There's a bit of the mystical for everyone.  I thought the sections on Victor Hugo were the most interesting in terms of his ghostly encounters.  And, the modern-day storyline of Jac searching for mythological proofs and connecting to her old boyfriend were very engaging.  However, the mix of the two sometimes was jarring, and didn't do much to enhance the story for me all together.  Two separate books would have worked better, I thought, though it was tied together as the book progressed.  Again, it was the surrounding and accompanying details that made the book most enjoyable for me.

 

All in all, though sometimes I found this book a mixed bag, there were some excellent parts...gothic and devilish! There was always the pull of the beautiful in aesthetic detail, as I've said.

 

At times I was reminded of a longish Poe novel. I found it too long for my tastes, truth be known. 

 

I have to recommend this book with reservations.  I enjoyed it, but I don't think it's for everyone.  The cover is beautiful, as you can see, and will draw people who collect!!

 

 

4 stars     Deborah/TheBookishDame