The Secret Language of Stones - M. J. Rose

on Tour July 19-28 with

(historical fiction) Release date: July 19, 2016 by Atria Books/Simon & Schuster ISBN: 978-1-4767-7809-9 320 pages Author’s page | Goodreads

SYNOPSIS

AS WORLD WAR I RAGES AND THE ROMANOV DYNASTY REACHES ITS SUDDEN, BRUTAL END, A YOUNG JEWELRY MAKER DISCOVERS LOVE, PASSION, AND HER OWN HEALING POWERS IN THIS RICH AND ROMANTIC NOVEL BY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR M.J. ROSE. Nestled deep within Paris’s historic Palais Royal, safe inside La Fantasie Russie’s once-bustling workshop, young, ambitious Opaline Duplessi spends her days making trench watches for soldiers at the front and mourning jewelry for the mothers, wives, and lovers of those who have fallen. Opaline has a rare gift, a form of lithomancy that allows her to translate the energy emanating from stones. Certain gemstones enable her to receive messages from beyond. In her mind, she is no mystic, but merely a messenger giving voice to soldiers who died before they were able to properly express themselves to loved ones. Until one day, one of these fallen soldiers communicates a message—directly to her. So begins a dangerous journey that will take Opaline into the darkest corners of wartime Paris and across the English Channel, where the exiled Romanov dowager empress is waiting to discover the fate of her family.

Full of romance, seduction, and a love so powerful it reaches beyond the grave, The Secret Language of Stones is yet another “entrancing read that will long be savored” (Library Journal, starred review).

“Spellbinding.” —Alyson Richman, author of The Lost Wife

REVIEW

This book follows Opaline who is a mystic and jeweler that can feel and hear things through stones. She works on creating talisman for women who have lost children/husbands/brothers in the war. Opaline creates the talisman from locks of hair and astrological dates and once complete she is able to hear final thoughts of the deceased. This works until she creates one for Jean Luc's mother and she can't stop hearing his voice. She is reluctant to give up the talisman since she seems to be falling in love with him.

I felt very conflicted over Opaline as a character. I wanted to love her as a person, but I felt like she was just going against the gift she was given constantly and everyone was telling her to embrace it. I get after she explains the challenges of the gift, but she was constantly going against learning to control the gift it felt like. She was given several opportunities to learn and didn't want to. Although at the end of the book I loved Opaline she was realizing all of her potential and trying to put things in the right order it did take some time to love her as a character.

The author did a great job with the setting of the book. She really did well describing the city and it felt like you could imagine exactly what was going on. I loved how she used a lot of details about the war and also the feelings that surrounded the city during the war. The author created so many emotions with this book it was easy to be transported to that world while reading.

I felt like one thing that could be improved upon was the secondary characters. I only got images and feelings of them from Opaline so I didn't feel really connected to any of them. I enjoyed reading about Anna, but would have loved to get some insight on what she thought about Opaline refusing to learn the importance of her gift. Also, I would have loved to get more details about why Opaline felt she couldn't trust her mother.

I loved the ending of this book. I didn't really see the ending coming with the flip of one character, but it was perfect! The author did a great job leading the reader on one path and then did a 180, it was great! We also got to see Opaline as a character shine and it made it worth the read.

I would suggest this as a nighttime read. It was easy to follow along in the book and I didn't have any issue picking the book up reading for a bit ad then putting it down.

I received a copy of this book from France Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. This does not effect my opinion of this book.

My Rating: 4/5

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

M.J. Rose grew up in New York City exploring the labyrinthine galleries of the Metropolitan Museum and the dark tunnels and lush gardens of Central Park —and reading her mother’s favorite books before she was allowed. She is the author of more than a dozen novels, the co-president and founding board member of International Thriller Writers, and the founder of the first marketing company for authors, AuthorBuzz.com. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. Please visit her website, her blog: Museum of Mysteries Subscribe to her mailing list and get information about new releases, free book downloads, contests, excerpts and more. Or send an email to TheFictionofMJRose-subscribe at yahoogroups dot com To send M.J. a message and/or request a signed bookplate, send an email to mjroseauthor at gmail dot com Follow her on Facebook and Twitter Buy the book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound | Books A Million

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