Quantcast

The Book of Lost Fragrances by M.J. Rose

February 20, 2012 by

The Book of Lost Fragrances by M.J. Rose continues the search for the 12 memory tools that Malachai Samuels continues to search for as part of his research and obsession with reincarnation.  The novel focuses not on Samuels per se, but on the history of the L’Etoile family and their development of perfumes and fragrances.  Jac has given up the family business, even though the family has insisted that she has the more discerning nose for scent, but her brother Robbie continues to believe that their family business can be saved from the brink of bankruptcy through the development of a new line of scents rather than from the sale of their trademark scents.

Rose weaves Napoleonic history with that of China and the oppression of Tibet and then brings those ties even further back into history to Egypt and Cleopatra.  In addition to archeology, her characters delve into mythology, history, and hieroglyphics translation and more, creating an even denser and more mysterious novel than expected.  How these moving pieces come together is unexpected and absorbing.

“The corpse on the left didn’t have his arms crossed on his chest, as was the custom.  Instead his right hand was extended and holding the hand of a woman with whom he’d been mummified.  Her left hand was knotted with his.  The two lovers were so lifelike, their bodies so uncorrupted, it appeared they had been buried months ago, not centuries.”  (Page 5 of ARC)

Through shifting time periods and places, readers travel with Rose’s characters to the deep recesses of their past lives, their memories, and their discoveries, while at the same time feeling the time pressure build as the House of L’Etoile draws nearer to demise and Jac’s brother Robbie disappears following a murder.  Jac must confront the loss of her mother and the expectations of her family as she strives to find her brother, find the perfume that people would kill for, and stay alive and grounded.  Jac must learn that forgetting or ignoring the past will not help her move into the future; she must accept what has happened, take it into herself, and move forward with those memories as a part of her.

“His family’s maison in Paris dated back to the mid-eighteenth century.  One shouldn’t tear down the past to make way for the future.  That’s how lessons were lost.  The art of keeping a civilization alive, like the art of making perfume, was in the blending.”  (page 46)

Meanwhile, Xie, a young calligrapher and artist in China, is living a secret life as a subversive.  Outwardly, he is the model citizen never saying too much but always thankful for opportunities presented to him by his teachers and the government.  He’s eventually chosen along with other artists to leave China on a European tour with their artwork, which makes him incredibly nervous given his communications with outsiders through his paintings.  He strives to free Tibetans from Chinese rule.  Although he is friends with others who are more outwardly subversive than he is, he tries desperately to rein in their tendencies, which could get him in trouble as well as ruin all of his plans.

The Book of Lost Fragrances by M.J. Rose blends history and mystery in an intellectual game of espionage and mythology surrounding a lost book of fragrances from the time of Cleopatra and a perfume that can help those who smell it relive their past lives.  But the novel also is about finding one’s soul mate, rekindling lost faith, and persevering against all odds.  Another winner from Rose in her series of books that will keep readers guessing adn second-guessing themselves until the memory tolls are discovered.

Also Reviewed:

The Hypnotist by M.J. Rose
The Memorist by M.J. Rose

About the Author:

M.J. Rose is the international best selling author of eleven novels and two non-fiction books on marketing. Her next novel THE BOOK OF LOST FRAGRANCES (Atria/S&S) will be published in March 2012.  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 commercial in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and since 2005 has run the first marketing company 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.

Click for the rest of the tour

 

Please follow the discussion on Twitter: With Hashtag: #LostFragrancesVirtualBookTour

Filed Under: ARC, historical fiction, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2012, reviews, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: , , ,

My Soul to Take by Tananarive Due

October 27, 2011 by

My Soul to Take by Tananarive Due is the fourth book in her immortals series and is set in the year 2016 when governments are striving to keep terrorists at bay and plagues secret to reduce the threat of panic.  Glow, a type of blood that is warm to the touch, is being touted as the solution to the pandemic and disease problem, but the United States has banned the drug for its terrorist ties and unknown origins.

Fana, an immortal, and her father, Dawit, hope to help the human race by offering the healing powers of their blood, but they are stopped at every turn by a rival faction of immortals who oppose the sharing of blood with mortals, led by Michel.  Complicating the situation even further is Fana’s attraction to mortal Johnny Wright and her betrothal to Michel.  Due has crafted a unique world in which these characters struggle not only for the life and death of humanity, but with greater questions of acceptance and compassion.  She even sprinkles her novel with technology gadgets that could be in our very near future, which is a nice touch.

“Fana was grateful that Mom had raised her with mortals in her family, closest to her heart.  Her cousin, aunt, and best friend were all mortals, so she hadn’t grown up with the feelings of superiority shared by her Life Brothers, and even her father.  She tried not to feel it, anyway.  Fana always began her meditations by asking for humility so she would not lose herself.” (page 64)

While readers will enjoy the intricate details throughout the novel about the Immortals and their way of life, something is missing — it is hard to connect with the characters without having read the previous books in the series.  Complicating matters is the emergence of Phoenix, a former music star, and her family, who are dealing with the deaths of a fraternal grandmother and maternal father that haunt them.  As quickly as readers become involved in her story, they are quickly shifted away from it and immersed in the immortal world.  When readers are returned to Phoenix’s story, they may feel like they have to flip back to recall what has happened to her.  This format does a disservice to the character — whose story line does intersect with Fana’s early on — and makes it difficult to reconnect with the character and her story and how it connects to the Immortals story line.

Due has a talent for creating other worlds, environments where immortals are gods, but have secreted themselves and their innovations away below the ground.  There are some that want to save humanity, and others that see humanity as ants to be squashed.  Through a great deal of biblical allusion, she creates an allegory for the Book of Revelations.  My Soul to Take is a slowly, unwinding battle of wills, but mortals refuse to sit on the sidelines and watch.  A pleasurable read that could be enhanced by reading the previous books in the series.

About the Author:

Tananarive Due (pronounced tah-nah-nah-REEVE doo) is the American Book Award-winning author of nine books, ranging from supernatural thrillers to a mystery to a civil rights memoir.

She has a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University and an M.A. in English literature from the University of Leeds, England, where she specialized in Nigerian literature as a Rotary Foundation Scholar. Due currently teaches creative writing in the MFA program at Antioch University Los Angeles. Due has also taught at the Hurston-Wright Foundation’s Writers’ Week, the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, and the summer Imagination conference at Cleveland State University. She is a former feature writer and columnist for The Miami Herald.

Due lives in Southern California with her husband, Steven Barnes; their son, Jason; and her stepdaughter, Nicki.

This is my 63rd book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2011, review copy, reviews, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: ,

The Taker by Alma Katsu

October 18, 2011 by

Alma Katsu’s The Taker has received a number of rave reviews and some unfavorable reviews, and it was recently listed in BookList’s Top 10 Debut books.

Lanore, “Lanny,” shows up in her northern Maine hometown covered in blood, and the police say that she has confessed to killing a man and leaving him in the frozen woods.  ER doctor, Luke Findley, becomes the recipient of a Gothic fairy tale that is more dark and sinister than full of fairy dust, unless that fairy is an evil alchemist and sodomite.

“The stranger had appeared suddenly, at the edge of the gathering that evening.  The first thing Adair noticed about him was that he was very old, practically a shrunken corpse leaning on his walking stick, and as he got closer, he looked older still.  His skin was papery and wrinkled, and dotted with age spots.  His eyes were coated with a milky film but nevertheless had a strange sharpness to them.  He had a thick head of snow white hair, so long that it trailed down his back in a plait.  But most notable were his clothes, which were of Romanian cut and made of costly fabrics.  Whoever he was, he was wealthy and, even though an old man, had no fear of stepping into a gypsy camp alone at night.”  (page 162)

The Taker is a story within a story, within a story, spanning from the dark ages through the present day, and Lanny claims to be immortal, but do not be mistaken into thinking she’s a vampire or werewolf.  She is neither.  Her unrequited love for the town pretty boy, Jonathan St. Andrew, is the main crux of the story and how it brings about her downfall that leads to her life as an immortal.  Katsu spoke recently at Novel Places about the book and revealed that the story of Pinocchio is the backbone of her novel, which is clear in how the desire to grow up and become a woman with her own life separate from her family propels Lanny to be easily led astray.  However, that is where the similarity ends.  Katsu’s novel is ripe with sodomy, rape, kidnapping, murder, and more, which is why it would be a perfectly dark book to read this season as Halloween approaches and is what would once have been considered horror (rather than the popular category of paranormal, which has a “lighter” tone to it).

Lanny tells her story to Luke in the present day, but a more effective approach would have been to have her merely tell her story to the reader.  As many know story framing or using one character as a plot device for another character to tell his/her story is bothersome if the character/plot device is not well developed.  While Luke does have a back story here, it fails to round out the character enough, leaving him flat and boring compared to the characters of Lanny and Adair.  Even Jonathan is little more than a caricature of the pretty boy of the town’s founders, and it would have served to have more of him and Lanny’s interactions in the book at the beginning of their “romance” to demonstrate their affection for one another.  However, being told from Lanny’s point of view, it is incredibly difficult to demonstrate Jonathan’s perspective on their relationship and oftentimes he comes off as a callous womanizer who is incapable of love.

With that said, however, Katsu is adept at time shifts within the story that keep the pace of the novel moving quickly.  Moreover, she creates a deeply atmospheric novel where readers are combing through the mist to grasp the truth of Lanny’s story and to unravel the mystery of her immortality.  Some have said this is a romance; it is not.  Most will debate who is “The Taker,” but there is certainly more than one, and it will depend on your personal perspective as to which you believe is the taker.  They all are takers in their own way — taking what love and affirmation they can, taking the loyalty of others by forcing their hands, and taking pleasure in the act of taking.  Readers who shun violence in books, particularly against women should steer clear.  Katsu’s The Taker is dark and decadent; an excellent debut novel for those looking to tantalize their darker senses with interminable consequences.

Stay tuned for the next two books in this series; I know I will be waiting on the edge of my seat. I’m always on the lookout for horror books, as I’ve grown tired of EMO vamps and werewolves.

For a chance to win my gently used ARC (which has a signed bookplate), please visit this post about Alma Katsu’s reading near me.  If you’re looking for another bonus entry, leave a comment on this review.

Alma Katsu (right) Me & Wiggles

About the Author:

Alma Katsu is a 30-year DC veteran who lives in two worlds: on one hand, she’s a novelist and author of The Taker (Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books). On the other hand, she was a senior intelligence analyst for CIA and NSA, and former expert in multilateral affairs.  Watch the book trailer or this one.

 

This is a stop on The Literary Road Trip since Katsu has worked in Washington, D.C., and now resides in Virginia.

 

 

This is my 61st book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, Events, fiction, giveaway, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2011, reviews, Simon & Schuster, The Literary Road Trip Tagged With: ,

She by Saul Williams

September 16, 2011 by

She by Saul Williams is a collection of interconnected musical poems coupled with a collection of images from Marcia Jones that tells a story about a woman and their journey together.  On his Website, he says, “This book chronicles my thoughts and feelings as a young man working through an early relationship with an amazing visual artist as we embark on adulthood and parenthood in the same breath.”

Each of Williams’ poems has a unique rhythm to it, and should be read aloud for effect.  Each is as expressive as you would expect Williams to be in real life, becoming an extension of himself and his digital, visual, and audio art.  Unlike other collections, Williams’ She is a story beginning to end with a prologue and epilogue and prose poetry.  The nameless She is integral to the journey, a connection to the past and the future, illustrated through short lines and “out loud” cadence that screams to be read aloud.

While readers could dip in and out of the collection and experience it in small chunks, it is best to read it cover to cover to grasp its full impact. Tackling issues of separatism, aging, and opposing desires, Williams pinpoints the harshest of realities and deals them a deft blow when he demonstrates the commonalities between us all. Because these poems do not have titles, the clear intent is to create a continuous narrative in which “calamity makes cousins of us all” (page 22) and “we live.” (page xi)

Nature imagery and personification can make the issues more vivid, “there is a gathering in the forest. the leaves have refused to change. they say that they are tired of things never remaining the same, of dying to be reborn, of winter’s dry withered hand.” (page 7) But lest the images become to heavy, there are moments of whimsy as well.

I have seen the truth
many times
but for the first time
she saw me

I wore suspenders
for the judgment
in my pants

(page 13)

As the relationship goes down hill, readers will not a dramatic change in the poems as the narrator struggles to let go for the sake of love. “I am a canvas/painted over/whether it be by your hand/or mine own.” (page 113) The images included in the book are unusual and appear to mix mediums, and often resemble pages from a scrapbook that a mother would keep of her children. In a way these pages resemble Williams’ play on words as he picks them apart and alters their definitions to explain the moment he is in.

Reading She alone in a room is not enough. It should be read aloud, shared with others, and most who pick up a copy will do just that. Seeing Saul Williams read it would make it even better, but its up to you to find out where he’s reading or performing next. There is not enough that can be said about this collection, except go read it!

Some reason Saul reminds me of Don Cheadle in this photo.

About the Poet:

Saul Williams is an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam.

From Wikipedia about Williams and Marcia Jones’ relationship:

Williams and artist Marcia Jones began their relationship in 1995 as collaborative artists on the Brooklyn performance art and spoken word circuit. Their daughter, Saturn, was born in 1996. His collection of poems S/HE is a series of reflections on the demise of the relationship. Marcia Jones, a visual artist and art professor, created the cover artwork for The Seventh Octave, images through-out S/HE in response to Williams, and set designed his 2001 album Amethyst Rock Star.

This is my 24th book for the Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge.

 

 

This is my 54th book for the 2011 New Authors Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, Fearless Poetry Exploration Reading Challenge, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2011, reviews, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: , ,

Mailbox Monday #140

August 22, 2011 by

Mailbox Mondays (click the icon to check out the new blog) has gone on tour since Marcia at A Girl and Her Books, formerly The Printed Page passed the torch.  This month our host is Life in the Thumb.  Kristi of The Story Siren continues to sponsor her In My Mailboxmeme.  Both of these memes allow bloggers to share what books they receive in the mail or through other means over the past week.

Just be warned that these posts can increase your TBR piles and wish lists.

Here’s what I received this week:

1.  Seeing Is Believing: [Observations on the Mysteries of Photography] by Errol Morris for review from TLC Book Tours in September.

2.  My Soul to Take by Tananarive Due for review.

What did you receive this week?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: , , ,

127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston (audio)

December 21, 2010 by

Aron Ralston, if you are not yet familiar wit his amazing recovery from being trapped in a Utah canyon, reads this abridged edition of his memoir, 127 Hours:  Between a Rock and a Hard Place.  In only five discs, listeners will get lessons in climbing equipment and the actual stamina and skill involved in hiking treacherous terrain out west.  Ralston is a man who often likes to hike and climb alone to commune with nature, but also to be with himself in a way that allows him to just be and assess his own life.

Listeners are walking beside Ralston as he tells his tale, climbing steep canyons with him, and feeling the agony and pain of dehydration, starvation, and major blood loss.  His enthusiasm for the outdoors and climbing are infectious.

127 Hours is a gripping real life tale of a human struggle alone in the wilderness and the enduring nature of hope and humanity.  Ralston’s struggle is immediate and harrowing.  The audio, especially narrated by the actual subject of the tragic event, is mesmerizing and even disturbing in its detail.  Overall, this is one of the best audio books of the year.  It is more than just a story about a man’s struggle and courage, but about what he does following tragedy to change his life and appreciate the friends and family he has.

My husband and I listened to this audio on the commute to and from work.  My husband says the best part of the book is how the narrator describes the process through which he amputates his arm to miss his major veins and nerves until the harder parts are severed, etc.  There is a true sense of how the human spirit seeks ways to keep the body going, and how the body keeps going regardless of moments of weakness in human will.  Ralston explains his plight really well.  Very profound and memorable.

***Thanks to Eco-Libris and the Green Books Campaign for sending us this wonderful prize.***

This is my 61st book for the 2010 New Authors Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: audiobooks, giveaway win, memoir, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2010, reviews, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: ,

Giveaway: Rick Yancey’s Monstrumologist, Curse of Wendigo

November 18, 2010 by

I have a special treat for the young adult in you or living with you, especially if they are interested in supernatural adventures.  Rick Yancey’s The Monstrumologist, which won the 2010 Michael L. Printz Honor Award, and the second book in the series, The Curse of the Wendigo, are up for grabs for two winners in the United States or Canada.

The Monstrumologist begins with the diary of Will Henry, orphan and assistant to a doctor with a most unusual specialty: monster hunting. In the short time he has lived with the doctor, Will has grown accustomed to his late night callers and dangerous business. But when one visitor comes with the body of a young girl and the monster that was eating her, Will’s world is about to change forever. The doctor has discovered a baby Anthropophagus—a headless monster that feeds through a mouth in its chest—and it signals a growing number of Anthropophagi. Now, Will and the doctor must face the horror threatening to overtake and consume our world before it is too late (from Simon & Schuster).

Please check out the Monstrumologist Web site and the first chapter of the book.

The Curse of the Wendigo:  While attempting to disprove that Homo vampiris, the vampire, could exist, Dr. Warthrop is asked by his former fiancé to rescue her husband from the Wendigo, a creature that starves even as it gorges itself on human flesh, which has snatched him in the Canadian wilderness. Although Warthrop also considers the Wendigo to be fictitious, he relents and rescues her husband from death and starvation, and then sees the man transform into a Wendigo. Can the doctor and Will Henry hunt down the ultimate predator, who, like the legendary vampire, is neither living nor dead, whose hunger for human flesh is never satisfied? This second book in The Monstrumologist series explores the line between myth and reality, love and hate, genius, and madness (from Simon & Schuster).

Please read the first chapter of the book.

Also check out this trailer:

About the Author:

Rick Yancey is the author of The Monstrumologist series (Book #1 of which won the Michael L. Printz Honor Award in 2010) as well as the critically acclaimed series Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp. He has also written several novels for adults including The Highly Effective Detective and A Burning in Homeland. He earned a BA in English from Roosevelt University in Chicago, and worked as a field officer for the Internal Revenue Service before turning to writing full time in 2004. Rick lives in Florida with his wife Sandy, three sons, two dogs and one lizard. Visit his Web site.

To Enter:

1. Leave a comment about why you want to win this series.
2. Spread the word via Blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. for a second entry.

Deadline Dec. 3, 2010, at 11:59 PM EST

***Thanks to Big Honcho Media and Simon & Schuster for sponsoring the giveaway. Look for my review later in the year.***

Filed Under: giveaway, Publishers/Publicists, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: , ,

Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis by Al Gore, read by Cynthia Nixon and John Slattery (audio)

June 25, 2010 by

Our Choice:  A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis by Al Gore , which I received as a win from the Green Books Campaign with Eco-Libris, is not what readers will expect.  The foreword is read by Al Gore himself (check out the audio excerpt), but the remainder of the audio is narrated by Cynthia Nixon and John Slattery in alternating chapters.  Many will expect this volume to talk about how to save the planet, but some may mistakenly think that this is a practical guide for the average American.  Upon listening to the audio, however, readers will quickly realize that it is geared at providing larger scale solutions to the climate crisis.  However, it would be wrong to assume this book is only for policymakers, scientists, and other societal players because without support from individuals these initiatives will not come to pass.

Our Choice is a comprehensive look at the most viable solutions available to combat and reverse climate change, and it examines each solution from a variety of perspectives to determine which would be the best investment.  The book is about not only learning to conserve energy, but also about learning to use waste energy to supplant energy needs and make processes more efficient.  From deforestation in developing nations to population growth, Gore discusses many of the pressing issues facing the sustainability of the globe.  Although many of the developed nations have contributed most to the carbon emissions and developing nations find it unfair that they should adhere to caps when they have not had enough time to develop their industries, Gore makes the case that we all live on the same planet and regardless of who caused the most damage the time has passed for the blame game.  It is now time for humans to look beyond nations, cultures, and societies to save our home.

Depending on your level of enthusiasm for environmental issues or affinity for audio books, Our Choice is a deeply informative book about the broader picture of climate change and the possible solutions.  However, readers may find the narration a bit dry at times given the nature of the information provided and may prefer to read this book on their Kindle or in paperback.  Gore’s book is a must have for each American so they can learn about the crisis, make note of the possible solutions available to individuals and those for the broader society, and take action on a grassroots level.  America was built on grassroots activity, and that great tradition should continue.

OK, I’m jumping down from my soapbox.  As a bonus, I would like to do the “green” thing and pass along my copy to another reader.

This giveaway for the audio of Our Choice by Al Gore is international:

1.  Leave a comment about your feelings on the climate crisis.

2.  Blog, Tweet, Facebook, or spread the word and leave a link on this post.

Deadline is July 4, 2010, at 11:59 PM

Filed Under: audiobooks, Eco-Libris, giveaway, giveaway win, Green books, nonfiction, Read in 2010, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: ,