France Book Tours -- Interview with Author M.J. Rose

Today, as part of France Book Tours, I’m welcoming M.J. Rose, author of Seduction.

Yesterday I posted a review of the novel and you can find it here. 

So, here we go:

Q. How would you sum up Seduction for those who haven’t read it yet?

I could but I love how this bookseller tells it.

"Seduction transcends time, recounting the story of Victor Hugo's tragic loss of his daughter and his desperate attempts to contact her via séances. Fast forward to the present, when Jacinthe 'Jac' L'Etoile, a mythologist specializing in Celtic lore, probes the secrets of the Isle of Jersey, where Hugo communed with spirits and composed his journal. With alacrity, Rose interweaves mythology, the supernatural, psychoanalysis and Evil Incarnate, creating an amazing amalgam of narrative wonder. And, yes, M.J. Rose fans, there are reincarnationists in Seduction, and they will haunt you." —Mystery Lovers Bookshop

 Q. You’ve published more than a dozen novels, yet Seduction is so original. What inspired you to include Victor Hugo and reincarnation themes in this novel?

When I write a novel I always need a question I want to answer. It’s not what the book is about… the reader might not even notice… but it keeps me motivated. The question that started this novel was way back in the early 2000s when I read Les Miserables. I was so curious about Fantine. She was such a tragic and heartfelt character. Who was she? Why did she have such a great impact on Hugo? Being a writer I knew it probably wasn’t as obvious as one might guess.

 Q. As an author, how much research is required for a book like this? Do you research from home or does it include travel?

This book took over two years of research and I usually have to do some traveling yet. It’s hard to go back in time and see the cities and towns the way they were – I wish I could though.

 Q. Is there a character in Seduction that you most closely relate too? Why?

I relate most to Fantine actually – I don’t know why but I felt her pain in a very visceral way. She moved me so much.

 Q. Do you believe in reincarnation? Did your beliefs make it harder or easier to write about reincarnation?

I’m open to it all – it’s all so fascinating to me.  I think I pretty much believe whichever character I’m writing in that moment. If pressed the best I can do is say - I don’t “not” believe.

Q. What inspired the title for Seduction?

I saw the book as a series of different seductions from the very beginning – most fascinating to me – the seduction of Victor Hugo by the spirit who offers him a “deal.” How a brilliant, powerful, rational man could be seduced into doing something terrible for the right promise.

Q. Please share your writing story. How did you begin and what helped you succeed?

Getting published has been an adventure for me. I 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, I set up a web site where readers could download my book for $9.95 and began to seriously market the novel on the Internet. I was in advertising and just wanted to find the right marketing strategy so that my agent could go back to the publishers with my plan.

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.

 Q. What authors or books influenced you?

So many – but I’d start with The Secret Garden when I was a little girl.. everything from Rebecca to Jane Eyre to Wuthering Heights to The Great Gatsby. I am an obsessive reader.

Q. Are you working on a new project now that we can look forward to?

Yes – its about Catherine De Medici’s perfumer. 

Thanks to M.J. Rose for the interview. Below you'll find a synopsis of the novel Seduction. 

Please leave a comment with information about how to contact you and you could win a signed manuscript page from M.J. Rose and the chance to win the necklace featured on the book cover. 

Seduction Synopsis A gothic tale about Victor Hugo's long-buried secrets and the lengths we go to for love...
In 1843, novelist Victor Hugo's beloved nineteen-year-old daughter drowned. Ten years later, still grieving, Hugo initiated hundreds of séances from his home on the Isle of Jersey in order to reestablish contact with her. In the process, he claimed to have communed with Plato, Galileo, Shakespeare, Dante, Jesus—and even the Devil himself. Hugo's transcriptions of these conversations have all been published.

Or so it has been believed...

Recovering from a great loss, mythologist Jac L'Etoile thinks that throwing herself into work will distract her from her grief. In the hopes of uncovering a secret about the island's mysterious Celtic roots, she arrives on the Isle of Jersey and is greeted by ghostly Neolithic monuments, medieval castles, and hidden caves.

But the man who's invited her there, a troubled soul named Theo Gaspard, hopes she'll help him discover something quite different—transcripts of Hugo's lost conversations with someone he called the Shadow of the Sepulcher. Central to his heritage, these are the papers his grandfather died trying to find.

But what neither Jac or Theo anticipate is that the mystery surrounding Victor Hugo will threaten their sanity and put their very lives at stake.

Seduction is a historically evocative and atmospheric tale of suspense with a spellbinding ghost story at its heart, written by one of America's most gifted and imaginative novelists. Awakening a mystery that spans centuries, this multi-layered gothic brings a time, a place, and a cast of desperate characters brilliantly to life.
Hardcover, 384 pages
Expected publication: May 7th 2013 by Atria Books
ISBN1451621507 (ISBN13: 9781451621501)

 Thanks for visiting and don't forget to leave a comment to be registered for the giveaway. 

Seduction by M.J. Rose and a Giveaway

 When I first began the novel Seduction by M.J. Rose, I was confused. It started with a journal written by Victor Hugo in Jersey, Channel Islands in 1855 and recalled how he had learned of his daughter's drowning death 12 years before. The next section jumped to Upstate Connecticut present day and a character named Jac L'Etoile who had been dealing with "hallucinations" of past life regressions since she was a teenager. Jac, short for Jacinthe, the French word for hyacinthe, worked as a producer of a reality TV show that debunked myths in cultures around the world.

Author M.J. Rose

I couldn't begin to see how these stories related, and I feared that I wouldn't care about the hashish smoking and seances of Hugo. But I became enthralled as these stories crossed at more than one juncture. Rose carefully wove the stories together, relying on facts about Hugo where she could and tying his experiences to the characters in some of his writing, including the characters in Les Miserables. The author also included an even older story of ancient Druids and their traditions, which worked with Jac's career and her past-life regressions. About halfway into the book, I needed to find out what happened and I raced through to get the answers.
My favorite parts about this book have to be the emphasis on scents. Jac comes from a family of parfumiers, but different smells send her into hallucinations about previous lives. Here's a section from 69% on my Kindle:

But there was something else Jac smelled. A rich and spicy perfume that combined roses, ylang-ylang and oak moss. Trapped in the pages for how many years, a fine French perfume was escaping. It was the kind of scent she had grown up with. Nothing like most modern mass-produced fragrances, but beautifully articulated and rounded. She sniffed at it. There was one note that she couldn't quite figure out, and that note was similar to the mysterious note in Ash's cologne. no, not similar, it was the same note. It was that curious amber she'd found in Fantine's studio. 

The emphasis on fragrance definitely made me more aware of scents around me and I wished I had the skill at separating and divining each one like Jac did.
One drawbacks of the story is the initial puzzlement waiting for the stories to come together, but once they intertwine, they are fascinating.
Once all the stories were interwoven and came to an end, I definitely felt that the overriding message came through: Embrace life -- the one you are living now.
The characters were flawed but likable and they all had solid supporting characters so it didn't seem like they would have to face their fears alone.
I recommend this book as a deliciously unfurling, then fast-paced novel of suspense.
Leave a comment and information about how to reach you at the end of this post, and you'll be entered to win a copy of a manuscript page with M.J. Rose's signature. The winner of the page will be entered into another drawing to win the necklace pictured above and on the cover of Seduction.

Here's a synopsis of the novel Seduction as provided by the publisher:

A gothic tale about Victor Hugo's long-buried secrets
and the lengths we go to for love...
In 1843, novelist Victor Hugo's beloved nineteen-year-old daughter drowned. Ten years later, still grieving, Hugo initiated hundreds of séances from his home on the Isle of Jersey in order to reestablish contact with her. In the process, he claimed to have communed with Plato, Galileo, Shakespeare, Dante, Jesus—and even the Devil himself. Hugo's transcriptions of these conversations have all been published.
Or so it has been believed...
Recovering from a great loss, mythologist Jac L'Etoile thinks that throwing herself into work will distract her from her grief. In the hopes of uncovering a secret about the island's mysterious Celtic roots, she arrives on the Isle of Jersey and is greeted by ghostly Neolithic monuments, medieval castles, and hidden caves.
But the man who's invited her there, a troubled soul named Theo Gaspard, hopes she'll help him discover something quite different—transcripts of Hugo's lost conversations with someone he called the Shadow of the Sepulcher. Central to his heritage, these are the papers his grandfather died trying to find.

But what neither Jac or Theo anticipate is that the mystery surrounding Victor Hugo will threaten their sanity and put their very lives at stake.

Seduction is a historically evocative and atmospheric tale of suspense with a spellbinding ghost story at its heart, written by one of America's most gifted and imaginative novelists. Awakening a mystery that spans centuries, this multi-layered gothic brings a time, a place, and a cast of desperate characters brilliantly to life.
Hardcover, 384 pages
Expected publication: May 7th 2013 by Atria Books
ISBN1451621507 (ISBN13: 9781451621501)

Thanks for visiting and remember to leave a comment and your  email if you want to be included in the giveaway.