Tea at Trianon: Seduction: A Novel of Suspense

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Seduction: A Novel of Suspense

Three dysfunctional situations in three different centuries are bound together by the ties of drug use and paranormal dabbling in novelist M.J. Rose’s latest production, entitled Seduction. The interwoven stories, set upon the island of Jersey, involve a family of ancient Celts, the 19^th-century author Victor Hugo, and a modern journalist named Jacinthe. Jacinthe, who is exploring the history of myths as well as the reasons behind her instability, is reunited with Theo, a friend made as a teenager at a mental hospital in Switzerland.

As Jacinthe is pulled deeper into Theo’s personal drama, her therapist is trying to convince her that her problems are due to unresolved past life regressions. In the meantime, the novel flashes back to Victor Hugo and his attempt to contact his dead daughter by means of séances, which grow more addictive until his encounters with the spirit world threaten to destroy him. Going further back, the book shows a pagan priest preparing for the Roman invasion by invoking his gods in a drug-induced trance, and finding that the gods demand a horrifying expiation. Each story involves the death of a child or young person and the struggle of the survivors to go on living afterwards.

Written in highly descriptive and sensuous prose, Seduction shows the dangers of trying to bend time and space to suit our emotions, when the only true healing is in letting go of the past. While the historical background is well-researched, those who do not believe in reincarnation might have trouble taking the plot seriously.

(This review originally appeared in May 2013 edition of The Historical Novels Review.)

(*NOTE: This book was sent to me by the Historical Novel Society in exchange for my honest opinion.) Share