Guest Post by M.J. Rose

Today, I have a guest post by M.J. Rose, the author of Seduction. I posted my review of her book yesterday.   Before I let M.J. take it away,  I want to let you know that she has one of the cutest dogs ever!  To see a great photo of this cutie, see her Twitter page.  The link is at the bottom.  That's your little reward for reading through the rest of this post.  ;)   

“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” ― Victor Hugo

Excerpt from SEDUCTION - From Chapter 5 Victor and Fantine
“No one has cared about me for a very very long time,” you said. “I would like to know how it feels again. Even just a bit of caring. I would like to test it and see if it is enough to keep me alive.”

“What an astonishing creature you are. You are offering me a bargain.” You smiled.  “I suppose I am.”

I reached out and touched your beautiful hair, lifting one of the curls. As I did I breathed in your scent again. What a fine perfume. One more suited to a woman seated in front of a silver tea set under a crystal chandelier than to a servant girl walking on the beach in Jersey.

SYNOPSIS of Seduction: 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.

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 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 and Twitter.

Guest post by M.J. Rose

I'd like to welcome M.J. Rose to my blog today. She's the author of The Book of Lost Fragrances (my review).

M.J. Rose: I've been fascinated with lost fragrances since long before I started writing The Book of Lost Fragrances... since I found a bottle of perfume on my great grandmother's dresser that had belonged to her mother in Russia. Here is one of those lost fragrances that stirs the senses and the imagination... (researched and described with the help of the perfume writer Dimitrios Dimitriadis)

SAUZÉ FRÈRES - PRESTIGE In 1947 French perfumers Sauzé released a perfume named "Prestige de Paris", however a rare, virtually unheard of perfume simply named Prestige has been uncovered that pre-dates this launch by a whopping 13 years! Prestige is a tender posy of powdery aldehydes and velvety florals… violet, jasmine and rose cartwheel on the air, painting an olfactory landscape of a spring garden using soft pastel hues. A perfume that is flirtatious and spirited, Prestige feels like a young European princess indulging in a game of hide-and-seek in an exquisitely-manicured garden labyrinth. A scent lost to time, all that remains now, is the memory of her perfume and her laughter on the wind.

SYNOPSIS: A sweeping and suspenseful tale of secrets, intrigue, and lovers separated by time, all connected through the mystical qualities of a perfume created in the days of Cleopatra--and lost for 2,000 years.

Jac L'Etoile has always been haunted by the past, her memories infused with the exotic scents that she grew up surrounded by as the heir to a storied French perfume company. In order to flee the pain of those remembrances--and of her mother's suicide--she moved to America. Now, fourteen years later she and her brother have inherited the company along with it's financial problems. But when Robbie hints at an earth-shattering discovery in the family archives and then suddenly goes missing--leaving a dead body in his wake--Jac is plunged into a world she thought she'd left behind.

Back in Paris to investigate her brother's disappearance, Jac becomes haunted by the legend the House of L'Etoile has been espousing since 1799. Is there a scent that can unlock the mystery of reincarnation - or is it just another dream infused perfume?

The Book of Lost Fragrances fuses history, passion, and suspense, moving from Cleopatra's Egypt and the terrors of revolutionary France to Tibet's battle with China and the glamour of modern-day Paris. Jac's quest for the ancient perfume someone is willing to kill for becomes the key to understanding her own troubled past.

AUTHOR BIO: M.J. Rose is the international bestselling 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.

For more information about the virtual tour and the other stops, please visit the Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours website.