Cassiopeia Vitt takes center stage in this exciting novella from New York Times bestsellers M.J. Rose and Steve Berry. THE MUSEUM OF MYSTERIES is now available! Check out the tour below, and pick up your copy of THE MUSEUM OF MYSTERIES today!
THE MUSEUM OF MYSTERIES Synopsis:
In the French mountain village of Eze, Cassiopeia visits an old friend who owns and operates the fabled Museum of Mysteries, a secretive place of the odd and arcane. When a robbery occurs at the museum, Cassiopeia gives chase to the thief and is plunged into a firestorm.
Through a mix of modern day intrigue and ancient alchemy, Cassiopeia is propelled back and forth through time, the inexplicable journeys leading her into a hotly contested French presidential election. Both candidates harbor secrets they would prefer to keep quiet, but an ancient potion could make that impossible. With intrigue that begins in southern France and ends in a chase across the streets of Paris, this magical, fast-paced, hold-your-breath thriller is all you’ve come to expect from M.J. Rose and Steve Berry.
Grab your copy of THE MUSEUM OF MYSTERIES here!
EXCERPT:
I closed the drawer. “This is extraordinary.”
“It is. But don’t uncork any of the bottles. Oddly, the scents are still potent. Five years ago we were doing research on them when the box disappeared. Then, as we now know, it found its way into the auction.” He pointed to one. “I can attest to the fact that this bottle contains fumes with some kind of hallucinogenic properties. I experienced a wild vision when I made the mistake of taking a sniff.”
Something about the box, the stones on top, the thick glass bottles, the iron corners, even the drawer, gave me pause. As if it were familiar, yet not. The feeling had started back in the shop, before the theft, while it had sat on the counter. There’d been no time to explore those feelings before all the excitement intervened.
But now—
A thought raced through my brain.
Somehow I knew that there should be vellum labels affixed to the bottom of each bottle. How? Why? I had no idea. Only that it was true. I gently touched one of them, then stopped and looked at Antoine. “May I take it out, if I don’t open it?”
He nodded.
I had to see if I was right.
I lifted out the bottle. Underneath was a label. Discolored and deteriorated with age. A word, written in a sepia script, had faded but could still be read.
Belladonna.
I replaced the bottle and reached for another.
Even before I lifted it out I knew that under it would be Diospyros.
And I was right.
I removed a third, but before I could peek beneath it I heard the grating sound of stones being ground beneath the soles of shoes and turned to see a man leaping toward me. Antoine shoved the newcomer away, then shouted for me to grab the box and run. Before I could move, a booted foot made contact with my arm. Somehow, I kept hold of the bottle in my grasp, but I was driven down to the wet ground. I tried to recoil and go on the offensive but another blow found my brow.
Red hot pain exploded across my skull.
Then, nothing.
Tracey’s Review
THE MUSEUM OF MYSTERIES came up on my reading list at just the right time. Romantic suspense is one of my favorite sub-genres, and when you throw in the elements of time travel and magic, well, I am all in. Authors Steve Berry and M.J. Rose have teamed up to write a novella that blends characters from their respective book series and given readers a delicious and mysterious story.
Casseopeia Vitt is the kind of heroine that I can get behind. She’s smart, savvy, and completely unafraid to take risks to find the answers that she wants. I have not read any of author M.J. Rose’s books, but I can’t wait to get into them, because she really knows how to write my kind of lead female character. And, although we don’t get nearly enough time with Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone, I’d like to see more of him, and look forward to reading more of Mr. Berry’s work.
My only complaint here? THE MUSEUM OF MYSTERIES, an easy 4.5 stars for me, is too short! I could happily have read more about these characters and their experiences with the artifacts from the museum, and would love to see them all again. Lovers of all things mysterious and slightly to the left of explainable will enjoy this book very much, and I highly recommend it.
Steve Berry & MJ Rose’s THE MUSEUM OF MYSTERIES – Review & Excerpt Tour Schedule:
July 18th
Book Junkie Reviews – Excerpt
Literature Goals – Review & Excerpt
July 19th
Clarissa Reads It All – Review & Excerpt
Read-Love-Blog – Excerpt
July 20th
Devilishly Delicious Book Reviews – Review & Excerpt
Smut Book Junkie Book Reviews – Review & Excerpt
July 21st
Ginreads – Review & Excerpt
Simply Crystal – Review & Excerpt
July 22nd
Cinta Garcia de la Rosa – Excerpt
Wild and Wonderful Reads – Review & Excerpt
July 23rd
Puja Mohan – Review
We do what we want Book reviews and more – Review & Excerpt
July 24th
A Book Nerd, a Bookseller and a Bibliophile – Review & Excerpt
Rachel Loren’s Love of Reading – Review & Excerpt
July 25th
Book Lovers Hangout – Review & Excerpt
CJR the Brit – Review
KDRBCK – Review & Excerpt
July 26th
Forward Writes – Review
What Is That Book About – Excerpt
July 27th
Jax’s Book Magic – Excerpt
Shelf_Life – Review
About Steve Berry:
STEVE BERRY is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of fourteen Cotton Malone novels and four stand-alones. He has 23 million books in print, translated into 40 languages. With his wife, Elizabeth, he is the founder of History Matters, which is dedicated to historical preservation. He serves on the Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board and was a founding member of International Thriller Writers, formerly serving as its co-president.
About M. J. Rose
New York Times bestseller, M.J. Rose grew up in New York City mostly in the labyrinthine galleries of the Metropolitan Museum, the dark tunnels and lush gardens of Central Park and reading her mother’s favorite books before she was allowed. She believes mystery and magic are all around us but we are too often too busy to notice… books that exaggerate mystery and magic draw attention to it and remind us to look for it and revel in it.
Please visit her blog, Museum of Mysteries at http://www.mjrose.com/blog/
Rose’s work has appeared in many magazines including Oprah magazine and she has been featured in the New York Times, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, Time, USA Today and on the Today Show, and NPR radio. Rose graduated from Syracuse University, spent the ’80s in advertising, has a commercial in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and since 2005 has run the first marketing company for authors – Authorbuzz.com
Rose lives in Connecticut with her husband the musician and composer, Doug Scofield.
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