Rating: 
Summary: Overhyped, a disappointment
Review: I think there's supposed to be some suspense in here, but who could find it? The relationships are phony, and without the suspense, what is left? - dull writing and little else.
Rating: 
Summary: Engrossing and smart
Review: I'm holding this novel responsible for my sleepiness this morning because I stayed up all night reading. My wife had bought it the day it came out and she was so enthralled that I picked it up as soon as she was finished. What can I say? It is a literary psychological puzzler featuring a totally engaging heroine. Add to that the fascinating backdrop of Manhattan's art world and clear, precise prose, and you have a novel I'm passing along to all my friends and co-workers (as soon as I stop yawning.)
Rating:
Summary: the power of obsession
Review: In Flesh Tones, M.J. Rose addresses important issues like loyalty, greed, and obsessive love, all through the eyes of a woman who has helped her lover commit suicide. The writing is clean and crisp, with a fine eye for detail, and an underlying tension about what is right and wrong that pulls you through this story.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting story that is perhaps the author's best to date
Review: Is it exciting to watch the progress of an author . . . M. J.
Rose's first novel, LIP SERVICE, was a terrific erotic
thriller . . . her second effort, IN FIDELITY, was good too . . . but I must admit that I liked her latest book, FLESH TONES, perhaps the most.This is the riveting story of a woman who is accused of
murdering her lover, a famous painter . . . or was it that she
helped him escape from a certain death that was slowly
eroding his sanity? Sometimes, flashbacks can be disconcerting in a novel . . . not
here . . . Rose uses them to effectively fill-in the gaps of
the story that also features a suspenseful trial . . . and
there are some hot sex scenes, though not nearly as
many as were in her earlier works. I also liked the fact that I got a behind-the-scenes look
at the art world, something that I knew very little about. In addition, there were several beautifully written passages;
among them:
We had eaten, slept, now we ate again. Time was passing and
each moment was taking me further away from what had
happened toward what would happen. I thought the abortion would quench some of my ardor for Gabriel, but it didn't happen. My body refused to obey my intellect. Around him, I was always ripe, ready. As time passed, I'm almost convinced myself a baby would have been an unwelcome disruption in our lives. "And then one day he met this willowy, brown-haired hippie
girl who gave herself to him. No demands. No expectations.
And he fell for her. For the first time in his life. Christ. It was like feeling rain on your face for the first time, or discovering a new color."
Rating:
Summary: Way more than a beach read!
Review: M.J. Rose knows writing! I finished Flesh Tones last night and have to say how much I admire her work. Her characters and the situation are finestkind, but I am most impressed with the way she tells the tale. What superb timing, and how nicely she spins a chapter strand into transition. With a tease here and a glimpse there, M.J. Rose gives us just enough to move the story along, like oars move a shell over the water: allowing us to glide between strokes, never losing momentum, accelerating smoothly to a stunning finish.
Rating:
Summary: Murder or Mercy Killing?
Review: MJ Rose has once again given her readers characters to remember, characters embroiled in a mystery torn from today's headlines. When 17-year-old Genny Haviland met and fell in love with much older artist Slade Gabriel, she entered into an affair that appeared to answer all the questions she'd ever had. Gabriel loved Genny as obsessively as she loved him, but ended their relationship when he learned her father was Jonathon Haviland, owner of a Madison Avenue art gallery, a man who possessed the power to make or break him. The affair left Genny emotionally enslaved to Gabriel, but Flesh Tones is more than a story about an obsession based in love. Two decades later, fate throws Genny and Slade together again. Gabriel is facing Alzheimer's disease and begs Genny to help him die-or does he? Although Genny killed him, did he really ask for her help, or did she end his life to protect her father's reputation from scandals of price-fixing and career tampering in the art world, scandals that could destroy her father completely? Did she kill Gabriel only to end his suffering, or did her bizarre upbringing as the only child of a larger-than-life father and distant, almost disconnected mother drive her to act?
The story flows seemlessly between the courtroom where Genny is being tried for murder, her times with Gabriel right before his death, and twenty years into their past. Although the jury reaches the verdict I suspected they'd reach, the journey this multi-layered story took before the trial's end pulled me into Genny's and Slade's world so completely I was sad to reach the last page of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Could Not Stop Reading
Review: MJ Rose is poised to break out with this tale of a woman in love. Engrossing and deeply moving, this book kept me reading from the first page and had me crying uncontrollably by the end. A very sexy, very smart, very suspenseful ode to love and loss.
Rating:
Summary: Searing, and semi-erotic...
Review: MJ Rose paints a portrait of an amazing bond between a man and woman. Genny and Slade, both products of the art world, meet when she is far too young to fall in love with him, or to share his passion. She misrepresents her age and background to be with him, and Rose skips forward, after laying the foundation, to Genny's immeasureable sacrifice for the man she loves. Rose is equally at home writing about art, death, the courtroom and the bedroom. She's one author I'll not soon forget! Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Searing, and semi-erotic...
Review: MJ Rose paints a portrait of an amazing bond between a man and woman. Genny and Slade, both products of the art world, meet when she is far too young to fall in love with him, or to share his passion. She misrepresents her age and background to be with him, and Rose skips forward, after laying the foundation, to Genny's immeasureable sacrifice for the man she loves. Rose is equally at home writing about art, death, the courtroom and the bedroom. She's one author I'll not soon forget! Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: An insider's look at the art world
Review: One of the most engaging aspects of M.J. Rose's writing is that she gives the reader an "insider's look" into a possibly unfamiliar venue. "Flesh tones" is set in the art world, and both the process of painting and the business end were depicted in an interesting and convincing way. The characters were attractive and made you care about them.
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