Jean-Claude Ellena’s The Diary of a Nose: A Year in the Life of a Perfumer will be published in English this July. The book originally appeared in French in 2011 as Journal d’un parfumeur (see Cheryl’s review)…
Scent of Triumph by Jan Moran ~ perfume books
Danielle Bretancourt von Hoffman, a talented nose and wife of an aristocratic glass manufacturer, is plunged into a nightmare when England declares war on Nazi Germany: her young son and mother-in-law might be trapped in Poland behind advancing enemy lines. As the conflict sweeps across the globe, Danielle turns to her perfumery talent and French aesthetics, her strong work ethic, and her good business sense to pave a way for her family’s survival.
Jan Moran chose an ambitious setting for her debut novel Scent of Triumph. For fiction writers, the war has it all: a sweeping international stage, a full cast of heroes and villains, good versus evil, life or death choices, intrigue, suspense, romance, heartbreak, and, of course, gorgeous perfumes…
Frederic Malle: On Perfume Making ~ perfume books
Frédéric Malle should have quit while he was ahead. His perfume house, Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle, has a number of popular and well done fragrances. On top of enjoying regular publicity, Malle himself is an Allure magazine contributor and pens “The Fragrance Guy” advice column.
For someone who built a brand to put perfumers in the spotlight, his book Frédéric Malle: On Perfume Making is distractingly self-oriented. Memoirs inherently are, but On Perfume Making lacks the rich insight and detail that makes them so intriguing. Malle’s introduction focuses on his personal frustrations with the industry’s present fixation on blockbuster perfumes, mainly that corporate input and disproportionate marketing budgets are crippling the creative process. For the majority of blog readers, it’s preaching to the choir. Where are the cringe-worthy anecdotes of marketing department meddling? Or the depressing examples of brilliant ideas rendered lackluster by cheap inferior ingredients? Whatever stories Malle has to tell, he’s not telling them here…
The Book of Lost Fragrances by M. J. Rose ~ perfume books
What if the primal ability to vividly remember a grandmother’s tenderness with a dollop of cold cream, or childhood summers with a handful of crushed flower stems, was just the tip of the iceberg? What if a scent had the power to spark past life memories?
In The Book of Lost Fragrances, the heir of a centuries-old French perfume house discovers an ancient perfume bottle that may have housed exactly that — and promptly vanishes with it, leaving a dead body in his wake. His sister Jac, a gifted nose plagued by scent-triggered hallucinations since her mother’s death, must face the olfactory perils of the family workshop to find clues to his whereabouts. But even as Jac dismisses the possibility of her brother’s find, his trail whispers with an elusive, unnameable scent that sparks visions of ancient Egypt and the French Revolution. Jac begins to wonder if her demons might be memories after all.
The Book of Lost Fragrances, by suspense-novelist M. J. Rose, is easy to get lost in…
Scent of Triumph by Jan Moran ~ perfume books
Jan Moran, author of the Fabulous Fragrances books and creator of the Scentsa fragrance finder, will publish her first novel, Scent of Triumph, in May…