Probably not fair for me to say much about this book as I am not part of the intended audience. I. Have a lot of interest in victor Hugo and some interest in scents. I am more than skeptical of reincarnation or those who believe they remember past lives. If you are open to those things and don't have a problem with names like Ash and Hyacinth , or its French form,this may be the book for you ( )

Seduction, written by M. J. Rose, came up when I did a catalogue search for Victor Hugo at my local library. Victor Hugo is a first-person point of view in numerous chapters--among other POVs-- in this novel written with the theme of reincarnation running throughout the plot. The historical chapters in Hugo’s voice take place while he was in a self-imposed exile (early 1850s) on the isle of Jersey before moving to the channel island of Guernsey and writing Les Miserable. It is in Jersey where Hugo and his family hosted séances, hoping to make contact with Hugo’s deceased daughter, Leopoline, who had drown years earlier at the age of nineteen. I’d heard about Hugo’s interest in Spiritualism from other sources while doing a bit of research on him and wanted to learn more.

Also, seeing that M. J. Rose wrote about reincarnation I thought I’d like to explore that concept/theory in a novel—the details on the other parts and POVs in the novel I’ll leave to the reviewers who’ve posted on this site before me. However, I will comment on the tale’s protagonist, Jac, to say that I found her, and the full cast of characters--many of whom were in dire need of healing--to be well-developed and rather interesting.

And so, this brings me back to Victor Hugo and those interesting chapters written about his time on the isle of Jersey. As a reader, I found these so well-crafted that I felt transported, as if one of Victor Hugo’s guest, back to that time and place. There is also an insightful and subtle suggestion within the tale’s storyline about how a writer’s inspiration could likely be linked to a form of transference. M. J. Rose tells her readers in the “Afterword” in the back of the book of the “coincidence” on how, as an author, she was able to channel Hugo’s voice (hint, using pen and paper). Fascinating! Overall, this is an imaginative and intriguing book. Aside from a few minor off-putting things in the climax of the story, and other readers may disagree, I still found this to be one of the most compelling novels I’ve come across in a long, long time. ( )

M.J. Rose continues to feed my fascination with reincarnation and history in this the fifth book in the Reincarnationist series. Combining the two once again into a novel that I think might be her best yet, Rose takes us this time into the world of seances.

Victor Hugo, famed novelist of Les Miserables, among others, is a prominent character in Seduction. When he loses his daughter to drowning, ten years later he still finds that he has not moved past her loss. He begins participating in seances in the hope that he will speak to his daughter again and ends up communicating with a myriad of famous personas, including the Devil. In the book, he transcribes these communications nightly and his lost transcriptions are at the heart of the story. The quest to discover these communique with the dead is what leads protagonist Jac L'Etoile into a suspenseful situation.

The shift from the present to the past and vice versa is an element that I have thoroughly enjoyed in books. However, not many write it as skillfully as Rose. The Reincarnationist series, and this book, are not only about the phenomenon of reincarnation. They are a thoughtful examination of how we human beings cope with loss and what we choose to believe about the after life. I think reincarnation is something that should be explored more extensively as a definite possibility. In writing these books, Rose is bringing reincarnation to the fore of people's minds, even if they do not believe, and I thank her for raising that awareness.
( )

I picked up this novel by chance through the online service I use to obtain galley copies of books (a galley being a book version released for small-scale reading prior to a book's publication date, usually for reviewers and the like), after the service emailed me to tell me that I'd been pre-approved for this novel.

Seeing anything inform me that “I'd been pre-approved” didn't exactly make me jump for joy – but at least this wasn't a credit card offer.

Noticing that the book was about Victor Hugo, at least in part, definitely turned my head. I've a long-time fan of Les Miserables (though I'll confess to never having read The Brick proper), and am always intrigued to learn more about the authors of France of that time period. So I downloaded the book – and fell into a world I'd never dreamed of.

Rose takes elements of truth and weaves a story so rich, I caught myself wanting to Google every detail, just to see if it was true. Hugo was very involved and interested in the spirit world, holding over a hundred seances in his time. Initially they were an attempt to contact his tragically deceased daughter – and over time, became an obsession with the world beyond.

Take Hugo's story, told first-person from Hugo's point of view, and match it alongside the story of Jac L'Etoile, a modern-day woman descended from perfumers that's taken a cynical eye to mythology and the world beyond, despite her career in television and books working in just that area. The character concepts do feel a little cluttered – each character that's introduced seems to have in-depth knowledge of absolutely everything – but as you come to know them, it does start to fit more neatly into their worlds.

Another plot is picked up halfway through – further back in time, following a priest from BC times and his family. Unlike some stories, the changes of character point-of-view flow seamlessly, and I never had trouble picking up who was speaking or when. (Keeping each of the stories in third-person save for Hugo's – which we learn why over the course of the novel – likely helps.)

Jac's journey, along with her childhood friend Theo Gaspard, is one rich with description and imagery. Rose has an uncanny ability to tell the tale and allow the reader to feel as if they are right there with Jac, smelling and seeing and experiencing all of it at the same time.

A few plotlines were never clarified – Jac's story with Griffin jumps to mind, and while Naomi's story is told from several different angles I'm not sure it's ever entirely parsed (and I'm equally unsure it needs to be) – but I don't believe this detracts from the novel overall in the least. I found myself anxious as the plot tightened, tense as the drama heightened, and caught by surprise by at least one of the plot twists.

Reincarnation, communing with the dead, mythology and Lucifer himself – all wrapped up in one exquisite book that catches hold of you and never really lets you go. Find a place where you can watch a storm crash over the water, tuck a blanket around you as a fire crackles nearby, lace your tea with some brandy and let Rose's words wash over you like the scents she so aptly describes.

(This review can also be read at my blog, here.) ( )

"Every story begins with a tremble of anticipation. At the start we may have an idea of our point of arrival, but what lies before us and makes us shudder is the journey, for that is all discovery. " ( )