Daughters of La Lune
3 primary works
Book 1
Paris, 1894. Sandrine Salome flees New York and her treacherous husband to find shelter in Paris with her grandmother, but as she settles in and pursues new passions, it's unclear whether she or an infamous ancestral witch is driving the changes.
"Possession. Power. Passion. New York Times bestselling novelist M. J. Rose creates her most provocative and magical spellbinder yet in this gothic novel set against the lavish spectacle of 1890s Belle Époque Paris. Sandrine Salome flees New York for her grandmother's Paris mansion to escape her dangerous husband, but what she finds there is even more menacing. The house, famous for its lavish art collection and elegant salons, is mysteriously closed up. Although her grandmother insists it's dangerous for Sandrine to visit, she defies her and meets Julien Duplessi, a mesmerizing young architect. Together they explore the hidden night world of Paris, the forbidden occult underground and Sandrine's deepest desires. Among the bohemians and the demi-monde, Sandrine discovers her erotic nature as a lover and painter. Then darker influences threaten--her cold and cruel husband is tracking her down and something sinister is taking hold, changing Sandrine, altering her. She's become possessed by La Lune: A witch, a legend, and a sixteenth-century courtesan, who opens up her life to a darkness that may become a gift or a curse. This is Sandrine's "wild night of the soul," her odyssey in the magnificent city of Paris, of art, love, and witchery"--
"Possession. Power. Passion. New York Times bestselling novelist M. J. Rose creates her most provocative and magical spellbinder yet in this gothic novel set against the lavish spectacle of 1890s Belle Époque Paris. Sandrine Salome flees New York for her grandmother's Paris mansion to escape her dangerous husband, but what she finds there is even more menacing. The house, famous for its lavish art collection and elegant salons, is mysteriously closed up. Although her grandmother insists it's dangerous for Sandrine to visit, she defies her and meets Julien Duplessi, a mesmerizing young architect. Together they explore the hidden night world of Paris, the forbidden occult underground and Sandrine's deepest desires. Among the bohemians and the demi-monde, Sandrine discovers her erotic nature as a lover and painter. Then darker influences threaten--her cold and cruel husband is tracking her down and something sinister is taking hold, changing Sandrine, altering her. She's become possessed by La Lune: A witch, a legend, and a sixteenth-century courtesan, who opens up her life to a darkness that may become a gift or a curse. This is Sandrine's "wild night of the soul," her odyssey in the magnificent city of Paris, of art, love, and witchery"--
Book 2
In World War I Paris, Opaline Duplessi, an employee at the famous La Fantasie Russie jewelry store, spends her time making trench watches for soldiers at the front, and mourning jewelry for the mothers, wives, and lovers of those who have fallen. People say that Opaline's creations are magical, a word she would rather not use. But she does have a rare gift, a form of lithomancy that allows her to translate the energy emanating from the stones and receive messages from beyond the grave. In her mind, she is not a 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, and Opaline sets off on a journey into the darkest corners of wartime Paris and across the English Channel, where the exiled Romanov dowager empress waits to discover the fate of her family. --
Book 3
"In this riveting and richly drawn novel from "one of the master storytellers of historical fiction" (New York Times bestselling author Beatriz Williams), a talented young artist flees New York for Paris after one of her scandalous drawings reveals a dark secret--and triggers a terrible tragedy. In the wake of a dark and brutal World War, the glitz and glamour of 1925 Manhattan shine like a beacon for the high society set, desperate to keep their gaze firmly fixed to the future. But Delphine Duplessi sees more than most. At a time in her career when she could easily be unknown and penniless, like so many of her classmates from L'École des Beaux Arts, in America she has gained notoriety for her stunning "shadow portraits" that frequently expose her subjects' most scandalous secrets. Most nights Delphine doesn't mind that her gift has become mere entertainment--a party trick--for the fashionable crowd. Then, on a snowy night in February, in a penthouse high above Fifth Avenue, Delphine's mystical talent leads to a tragedy between two brothers. Devastated and disconsolate, Delphine renounces her gift and returns to her old life in the south of France where Picasso, Matisse, and the Fitzgeralds are summering. There, Delphine is thrust into recapturing the past. First by her charismatic twin brother and business manager Sebastian who attempts to cajole her back to work and into co-dependence, then by the world famous opera singer Emma Calve, who is obsessed with the writings of the fourteenth-century alchemist Nicolas Flamel. And finally by her ex-lover Mathieu, who is determined to lure her back into his arms, unaware of the danger that led Delphine to flee Paris for New York five years before. Trapped in an ancient chateau where hidden knowledge lurks in the shadows, Delphine questions everything and everyone she loves the most--her art, her magick, her family, and Mathieu--in an effort to accept them as the gifts they are. Only there can she shed her fear of loving and living with her eyes wide open"--