Guest Blogger, M.J. Rose

Today the international bestselling author M.J. Rose is guest blogging here at Thoughts in Progress as part of her virtual blog tour. Please join me in welcoming her.

M.J.’s current release, THE HYPNOTIST is her most mesmerizing novel yet. An adventure, a love story, a clash of cultures, a spiritual quest, it is above all a thrilling capstone to her unique Reincarnation novels, THE REINCARNATIONIST and THE MEMORIST.

Here’s a brief synopsis of THE HYPNOTIST: An FBI agent, tormented by a death he wasn’t able to prevent, a crime he’s never been able to solve and a love he’s never forgotten, discovers that his true conflict resides not in his past, but in a…Past Life.
Haunted by a twenty-year old murder of a beautiful young painter, Lucian Glass keeps his demons at bay through his fascinating work as a Special Agent with the FBI’s Art Crime Team. Currently investigating a crazed art collector who has begun destroying prized masterworks, Glass is thrust into a bizarre hostage negotiation that takes him undercover at the Phoenix Foundation—dedicated to the science of past life study—where, in order to maintain his cover, he agrees to submit to the treatment of a hypnotist. 
 
Under hypnosis, Glass travels from ancient Greece to 19th century Persia, while the case takes him from New York to Paris and the movie capital of world. These journeys will change his very understanding of reality, lead him to question his own sanity and land him at the center of perhaps the most audacious art heist in history: the theft of a 1,500 year old sculpture from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 
 
M. J. joins us today to talk about her series.

 
When I was three years old, I told my great grandfather things about his childhood in Russia that there was simply no way I could have known. He became convinced I was a reincarnation of someone in his past. And over time, after more incidents, my mother – a very sane and logical woman -- also came to believe it.

Reincarnation was an idea I grew up with that my mom and I talked about and researched together. For years, I wanted to write a novel about someone like my mother – who was sane and logical – who started out skeptical but came to believe in reincarnation. But I was afraid if I did people would think I was a “woo woo weirdo”.

I tried to start the first book in the series thirteen years ago after my mother died but I was too close to the subject and missed her too much to be able to explore it objectively. Every once in while the idea would start to pester me again but I still stayed away from it. Then several years ago on the exact anniversary of my mom’s death my niece, who was a toddler at the time, said some very curious things to me about my mother and I – things she really couldn't have known -- and the pestering became an obsession.

Josh Ryder, the main character in the first Reincarnationist book had my mom’s initials, her spirit and her curiosity and like her, he’s a photographer. But there the similarities end.

When Josh started having flashbacks that simply can’t be explained any other way except as possible reincarnation memories he goes to New York to study with Dr. Malachai Samuels -- a scientist and Reincarnationist who works with children helping them deal with past life memories. In the process Josh gets caught up in the search for ancient memory tools that may or may not physically enable people to reach back and discover who they were and who they are.

The series continues with other characters looking for, finding and loosing memory tools and in the process finding parts of their own past which helps them individuate and become more whole in the present.

Each of the three book in the series have garnered stars from Publisher’s Weekly, stars or raves from Library Journal and have all been Indie Next picks. I think of all my books, this series is the one my mom would be the most proud of which is fitting since it’s really the one she inspired.

M.J., thanks for sharing this. It’s a very inspiring story. I think at sometime all of us may wonder about the possibilities of reincarnation.

Now for a little background on M.J.  She is the author of 11 novels; Lip Service, In Fidelity, Flesh Tones, Sheet Music, Lying in Bed, The Halo Effect, The Delilah Complex, The Venus Fix, The Reincarnationist, The Memorist and The Hypnotist. She is also the co-author with Angela Adair Hoy of How to Publish and Promote Online, and with Doug Clegg of Buzz Your Book.

M. J. is a founding member and board member of International Thriller Writers and the founder of the first marketing company for authors: AuthorBuzz.com. She runs two popular blogs; Buzz, Balls & Hype and Backstory. She has been profiled in Time magazine, Forbes, The New York Times, Business 2.0, Working Woman, Newsweek and New York Magazine.

In addition, M.J. has appeared on The Today Show, Fox News, The Jim Lehrer NewsHour, and features on her have appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and abroad, including USA Today, Stern, L’Official, Poets and Writers and Publishers Weekly.
She graduated from Syracuse University and spent the ’80s in advertising. She was the Creative Director of Rosenfeld Sirowitz and Lawson and she has a commercial in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. She lives in Connecticut with Doug Scofield, a composer, and their very spoiled dog, Winka.  For more information, visit her website at www.mjrose.com