Michael Schmicker's Blog - Posts Tagged "m-j-rose"
John + Sabina, Forever (BOOK REVIEW)
Admit it. You’re curious about reincarnation.
Who isn’t intrigued by the possibility that we may have lived a past life?
Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism famously enshrine the idea, but reincarnation belief is global. Eskimos, Pacific Islanders, the Yoruba of West Africa, the aborigines of Australia, and the Teutonic and Celtic tribes of Europe all accept the idea of multiple rebirths. The biggest surprise? – a 2013 Harris Poll found one in four Americans believe in reincarnation. That’s 80 million people. Next time you’re standing in line at Starbucks, chances are a “born again” believer is queued up with you, looking for a venti mocha.
Voltaire, that quintessential, French rationalist and philosopher, didn’t find reincarnation intellectually absurd. “It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.” Neither did Socrates, Napoleon, Balzac, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Ford, Carl Jung, or the Beatles’ George Harrison – just a few of the many famous people who embraced the possibility.
If you’re among their ranks, or simply fascinated with the thought, fire up your Kindle and download M.J. Rose’s "The Reincarnationist" – a time-slip thriller with an inventive, twisting plot that moves back and forth between modern Italy and 391 AD Rome, where a newly triumphant Christianity is brutally eradicating the last vestiges of Rome’s ancient, venerable state religion, the Vestal Virgins.
The time-traveling hero of this two-millennia romance is AP photojournalist Josh Ryder. He’s covering a delegation of peacekeepers visiting the Pope in Rome when a suicide bomber detonates his weapon just steps from him. The explosion lands him in the hospital; it also triggers troubling memory lurches back in time to a past life as the illicit lover of Sabina, a Vestal Virgin buried alive for having sex with him. I’m up on Christianity and the Roman Empire (I was raised Roman Catholic; I read history avidly), but knew almost nothing about Vesta, Roman goddess of the hearth, and the unbroken succession of young priestesses who served her for over a thousand years. Author Rose brings the banished religion back to vivid life, expertly weaving its fascinating catechism, rites, rituals, and harsh punishments into her intricately plotted tale.
Ryder, physically recovered but mentally tormented, subsequently returns to Rome seeking answers to his flashbacks. He finds them in a tomb being excavated by the reincarnation-focused Phoenix Foundation, which has hired Josh to photograph the dig. The Foundation is surreptitiously looking for more than pottery, beads and bones; it suspects the Vestal Virgin burial site may also contain the legendary “Memory Stones” –ancient gemstones which reputedly allow people to view their past lives. The Foundation finds its priceless, metaphysical treasure; Josh finds the body of his cruelly suffocated 4th century lover, Sabina; and a vicious struggle ensues for control of the stones, sparking robbery, kidnapping and murder. You’re hooked.
Erudite and entertaining, The Reincarnationist went on to inspire the 2010 Fox TV series "Past Life."
Rose has a fascination with the supernatural, a fervent following, and a suite of best-sellers exploring the metaphysical. If you enjoy historical fiction with paranormal twist, don’t forget to check out her latest novel, "The Witch of Painted Sorrows," a tale of spirit possession set in decadent, 1890s Belle Époque Paris. Who knows: you may have been there – a genial flâneur strolling Boulevard Haussmann in a previous life.
Isn’t that a pleasant thought!
Who isn’t intrigued by the possibility that we may have lived a past life?
Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism famously enshrine the idea, but reincarnation belief is global. Eskimos, Pacific Islanders, the Yoruba of West Africa, the aborigines of Australia, and the Teutonic and Celtic tribes of Europe all accept the idea of multiple rebirths. The biggest surprise? – a 2013 Harris Poll found one in four Americans believe in reincarnation. That’s 80 million people. Next time you’re standing in line at Starbucks, chances are a “born again” believer is queued up with you, looking for a venti mocha.
Voltaire, that quintessential, French rationalist and philosopher, didn’t find reincarnation intellectually absurd. “It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.” Neither did Socrates, Napoleon, Balzac, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Ford, Carl Jung, or the Beatles’ George Harrison – just a few of the many famous people who embraced the possibility.
If you’re among their ranks, or simply fascinated with the thought, fire up your Kindle and download M.J. Rose’s "The Reincarnationist" – a time-slip thriller with an inventive, twisting plot that moves back and forth between modern Italy and 391 AD Rome, where a newly triumphant Christianity is brutally eradicating the last vestiges of Rome’s ancient, venerable state religion, the Vestal Virgins.
The time-traveling hero of this two-millennia romance is AP photojournalist Josh Ryder. He’s covering a delegation of peacekeepers visiting the Pope in Rome when a suicide bomber detonates his weapon just steps from him. The explosion lands him in the hospital; it also triggers troubling memory lurches back in time to a past life as the illicit lover of Sabina, a Vestal Virgin buried alive for having sex with him. I’m up on Christianity and the Roman Empire (I was raised Roman Catholic; I read history avidly), but knew almost nothing about Vesta, Roman goddess of the hearth, and the unbroken succession of young priestesses who served her for over a thousand years. Author Rose brings the banished religion back to vivid life, expertly weaving its fascinating catechism, rites, rituals, and harsh punishments into her intricately plotted tale.
Ryder, physically recovered but mentally tormented, subsequently returns to Rome seeking answers to his flashbacks. He finds them in a tomb being excavated by the reincarnation-focused Phoenix Foundation, which has hired Josh to photograph the dig. The Foundation is surreptitiously looking for more than pottery, beads and bones; it suspects the Vestal Virgin burial site may also contain the legendary “Memory Stones” –ancient gemstones which reputedly allow people to view their past lives. The Foundation finds its priceless, metaphysical treasure; Josh finds the body of his cruelly suffocated 4th century lover, Sabina; and a vicious struggle ensues for control of the stones, sparking robbery, kidnapping and murder. You’re hooked.
Erudite and entertaining, The Reincarnationist went on to inspire the 2010 Fox TV series "Past Life."
Rose has a fascination with the supernatural, a fervent following, and a suite of best-sellers exploring the metaphysical. If you enjoy historical fiction with paranormal twist, don’t forget to check out her latest novel, "The Witch of Painted Sorrows," a tale of spirit possession set in decadent, 1890s Belle Époque Paris. Who knows: you may have been there – a genial flâneur strolling Boulevard Haussmann in a previous life.
Isn’t that a pleasant thought!
