Reviews Publishers Weekly - "Empowerment may be Rose's theme, but titillation plays no small part in this novel's game." From Kirkus Reviews Rose's journey...lust will keep you turning the pages. Satin Sheets Web site Lip Service should be on the NYT Bestseller list! I normally steer clear of stories in the first person, with the exception of Diana Gabaldon, but MJ Rose will be the second author for whom I'll that make an exception for. Lip Service is a phenomenol narrative of erotica and astounding insight into the human psyche that's on this side of frightening. I was hooked from page one and didn't put it down until I finished…

I was born and bred in New York City. What a place to grow up! Santa and me - age 2 I was one of those shy kids who preferred adults and books to games except for a game my Mom and I played: we spent hours at museums making up stories about the people inside the paintings. My parents were very understanding about my inability to fit in well with other children and rather than force me to be like every body else they encouraged my creativity and curiosity. And that, as Robert Frost said, has made all the difference." By eight I'd read everything by Louisa May Alcott…

Chapter One My daughter stood beyond the fieldstone fence that separated the house from the beach. From the kitchen window, Lilly's slight form was silhouetted against the sunset and the sea. In that wide-open vista she seemed vulnerable and small. Even from a distance, I could see that she was shivering. Grabbing a jacket for her, I threw one around my own shoulders and walked out, down the sloping lawn that was not yet green because spring had not quite arrived, and out to the edge of the property. It was the last weekend of March and the harsh winds blew against my face. Waves broke wildly against the shore.…

Prologue At six a.m. the third floor of the CIA building was as quiet as a cemetery -- which was exactly how Peter Murphy liked it. Marching down the hall, the fifty-year-old ex-Marine nodded at the security guard who nodded back. In ten years they had never exchanged a single "good morning" but if one of them hadn’t shown up for work, the other would have been concerned. Murphy opened his office door and squinted in the sunlight. As he jerked the cord and lowered the vertical blinds, he made a mental note to remind his new assistant she was supposed do that before she left at night. Breaking in…

CHAPTER Chapter One September 23, 1996 FIVE WEEKS EARLIER Like most visitors to the New York Botanical Garden, I'd always seen them during the day in sunshine when the colors of the flowers and foliage were bright and their groomed perfection was obvious. But that evening, as we rode up the winding road that led through the gardens, the brilliance of the gardens was concealed by the encroaching twilight. Rather than the cultivated postcard I was familiar with, I found I preferred the mystery that loomed before me now as the shadows deepened. What was hiding in the old branches of the tall elm? In the twisted limbs of the…