M.J. Rose's Backstory

The Venus Fix by M.J. Rose

A group of authors were invited to an independent bookstore last December. I’d only been there for a few minutes when the fourteen-year-old daughter of an old friend, came up to me with a copy of one of my novels -- THE HALO EFFECT -- and asked if I could sign it. Before I put pen to paper her mother descended on us like a seagull going for a fish.

“Suzanne! You can’t buy M.J.’s book. You’re not old enough to read what she writes.”

Suzanne rolled her eyes – for my benefit – as her mother grabbed my novel and put it back on the pile in front of me.

A few minutes later, as soon as her mother was busy talking to another friend of ours, Suzanne was back.

“I’m still going to read it. I’ll just take it out of the library,” she smiled. “We all read your books at school.”

I was a little surprised. “You do?”

“Yes, we even have a game we play at lunch based on one of them, we even called it LIP SERVICE.”

LIP SERVICE is indeed the title of my first novel.

“How does the game work?” I asked, with some apprehension. (LIP SERVICE has more than a little to do with phone sex.)

“We see who can come up with the dirtiest double entendre – like your title – you know? And whoever has the best one wins.”

She laughed. I breathed a sigh of relief. Considering the subject matter of the book, the game could have been much, much worse.

Then she said: “We mark the sex scenes in your books…” Breaking off, she looked down at the floor. Clearly she wanted to say something else, so I kept quiet.

“You know there are some girls in my class who have never been kissed…” again she didn’t finish the sentence.

I nodded and waited.

“But they’ve done a lot of stuff for they guys they hang out with… … some of it is the same stuff the webcam girls do… have you ever seen them?”

Her eyes had turned dark and something smoldered under the surface. Confusion? Anger? Desperation?

At that point, I’d written five novels, the latest was the first featuring NYC sex therapist, Dr. Morgan Snow. I was half way through writing the second in that series (THE DEILAH COMPLEX) and wasn’t ready to think about the third but I knew I’d was hearing about something that mattered.

Men and teenage boys who are addicted to online pornography and how it’s changing off line sexual relationships is a subject that deserves attention. It needs to be explored.

One of the reasons I write enjoy writing psychological suspense is because even though I am clearly writing fiction, it gives me the ability to explore subjects that have real resonance and relevance in our lives.

I did a lot of research with dozens of teenagers before I started to write THE VENUS FIX as well as several therapists and several adults. I’ve never written a novel before where the research was as disturbing or troublesome as it was this time. The implications of what I found out were far reaching not in the least because no one seems to have any solutions other to turn their back and ignore the problem.

My goal with every novel is to thrill my readers and keep you turning the pages.

But my mission is to find the dark, disturbing subjects that pain us and shine some light on them.

The genesis of my new novel, THE VENUS FIX, came from Suzanne’s smoldering eyes and distressful confession that night in the bookstore. Of course I added twists and turns to it and turned it into a thriller.

My hope is that in addition to all of you, when she and her friends take this book out of the library and read it, they feel I’ve done their story justice.