Sheet Music
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
From a seductive storyteller who dares to plumb the dark, passionate depths of the heart and soul comes an absorbing new erotic thriller that is also a gripping tale of psychological suspense.
Grief-stricken Justine Pagett fled to Paris after her mother’s death, but scandal forces her back to the States to redeem her tarnished reputation as a journalist. Commissioned to write a piece on the eccentric classical composer Sophie DeLyon, Justine finds herself part of a mysterious deception. At Euphonia, the exclusive institution DeLyon created to nurture America’s most gifted music prodigies, a malevolent presence is composing a deadly work. Threatening cybermessages meant to intimidate convince a determined Justine that fascinating secrets await her. But when Sophie suddenly disappears, Justine’s assignment to mine the story behind the legend becomes an even greater challenge.
The disharmonious DeLyon family seems more interested in Sophie’s estate than in her artistic legacy, and a group of devoted fans is fiercely defending the name of the enigmatic genius. Wrestling with her own demons while searching for the truth, Justine is clear about one thing: Someone is orchestrating a deadly deceit . . . from which no one will emerge unscathed.
An expertly crafted opus of obsessive passions and poisonous shame, of brilliant achievements and brutal deception, Sheet Music confirms M. J. Rose’s place at the forefront of today’s top psychological suspense writers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Justine Pagett, the heroine of this overwrought thriller by Rose (Flesh Tones), is an American journalist living in Paris, where she fled after her mother's death three years ago. When a scandal breaks over one of her exposes-the subject accuses her of seducing him to get the story-Justine hopes to revive her career by taking an assignment in her native New York. She is to write a profile of reclusive composer and conductor Sophie DeLyon. But some of Sophie's devoted students don't want her story to be packaged for mass consumption and try to sabotage Justine's project. On the eve of Justine's arrival at the DeLyon estate, Sophie disappears. While unraveling the mystery of Sophie's life and disappearance, Justine must face her father and sister, also living in New York, from whom she's been bitterly estranged since her mother's death. She also has to contend with her feelings for her ex-lover Austen Bell, a composer and cellist who is also Sophie's protege and ex-son-in-law. Austen is just the kind of man Justine wants to avoid-one that she may actually fall in love with, something she has been steadfastly avoiding since her mother died. The mystery plot is gripping, but it is often overshadowed by exploration of Justine's grief and angst. This emotional terrain is familiar, the more so because Rose tends to use obvious symbolism ("no matter what I eat, I am never full," Justine tells us). Rose's fans will be willing to unearth the suspense story buried in all this earnest soul-searching, but this lackluster effort is unlikely to win her new readers.
