A Mother’s Day Seduction

With Mother’s Day upon us, those of us who have lost our moms can find the day bittersweet. As author and occasional January Magazine contributor, MJ Rose, says eloquently in a fond remembrance at The Huffington Post, “I always miss my mom. Mother’s Day would be just one more day I’d feel her absence but for the relentless commercialization. Thanks to that, this day is even harder to deal with.”

And though all of our moms are special, to a booklover, Rose’s mom sounds like she was especially cool. Among other things, Rose recently shared on Facebook, “Her job before she had me was as a short story editor at Good Houskeeping -- assistant to Judith Krantz.”

Sadly, Rose’s mom never got to read any of her books, though Rose feels her influence in so many aspects of her own life to this day. “So for Mother’s Day,” Rose writes in her HuffPo piece, “I thought in tribute, I’d list the books on her shelves that she gave me  (or I snuck) to read. The ones I remember. The ones she loved or admired the most.” You can see Rose’s list here.

Rose’s dozen critically acclaimed novels were joined by a new one just this last week. Seduction (Atria) is a beautiful ghost story. Once again, Rose weaves a present day tale with a strong thread locked in history. In Seduction, a grief-stricken Victor Hugo, exiled to the Isle of Jersey, struggles to contact his beloved dead daughter in the afterlife… and comes in contact with some of the big names of myth and history: Plato, Shakespeare, Jesus and even the devil.

Meanwhile, in the present, a mythologist battling her own demons, comes to Jersey looking for secrets about the island’s Celtic roots. She’s been invited by an old friend who has a dark motive: Hugo’s lost conversations with a dark and evil force.

Seduction is twisty, sensuous and ultimately satisfying.