Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940151027762 |
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| Publisher: | AOS Publishing |
| Publication date: | 07/28/2015 |
| Series: | La Vie en Roses Series , #2 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | NOOK Book |
| Pages: | 321 |
| Sales rank: | 173,734 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
A Wish Upon Jasmine
4.9 out of 5
based on
0 ratings.
9 reviews.
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The second book in the La Vie en Rose series focuses on the business savvy Damien. The one known for being cold and ruthless when it comes to protecting his family’s business interests. Six months ago he met a woman that didn’t treat him like the wealthy, connection-rich business man he is known as around the world. They met at a perfume launch party and he thought they hit it off, but the next morning she was gone before he awoke. He discovered she was part owner of a new perfume business that he just took over, and anytime he reached out to her she treated him like she couldn’t care less about him. Six months later she is in Grasse, France and just inherited his family's original perfume shoppe thanks to his Tante Collete, the same woman who gave away part of Matt’s valley in book one. He is resentful and cold and angry with her from the moment he walks into the shop.
Six months ago, Jasmine was a well sought after perfumer who attempted to start her own company, fell in love with a man she met at a party not realizing who he truly was until the next morning, and was dealing with her father slowly dying, all at the same time. To say she didn’t handle Damien well is an understatement. Now she is in Grasse and suddenly finds him coming into her shop and challenging her to come up with his own personal sent, and if she can, she can keep the shop otherwise he will take her to court to get it back. Along the way, his anger with how things played out plays a pivotal role in how their relationship develops this time around. I think his anger was a bit extreme, especially once he finds out what she was dealing with at the time and how she saw him buying her company. I think he held onto that resentment a bit too long and let’s face it, they had one night together in New York and for both of them it was more than a one night stand, but neither communicated well and she really should have heard him out, so they were both in the wrong with how things were handled. I’m not sure his anger was truly justified. Not when he discovers everything about her and who she is as a person and how she handles tough situations, which is poorly.
With that said, I loved how much he loved her and I loved how she tried to tell him she loved him without actually saying the words. It was romantic, passionate, sweet, and overall a feel good romance story. I’m so happy they ended up together and they learned how to communicate with each other when words weren’t always easy for either of them. A beautiful story.
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I want to live in a Laura Florand novel. To escape to Paris, or, in the case of A Wish Upon Jasmine, to the south of France.
Florand is a sorceress of truly and unequivocally lovely literary fiction. I am always entranced by the sights, sounds and scents she creates in all of her uniquely crafted stories. So many layers, so much depth, in both her world/scene and her character building.
"'Men have layers.'
'Like onions,' she agreed solemnly, flexing her fingers on that bottle.
He checked, and then laughter flashed across his face. He tried to catch it back, but it curled up the corners of his lips. 'Like parfaits.'"
I am enjoying the La Vie en Roses series, immensely. So many Rosier men, so many tales to tell! Not simply fairy tales or romance, but multicultural, multigenerational and descriptively historic tales for each larger than life member of this deeply-rooted family from Grasse.
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What a wonderful story, so enjoyed reading it. Made my weekend!!!
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So good. Lovely, sensual, moving. So very good.
Florand is one of my favorite writers. I am never disappointed and always made very very happy. Just writing this review makes me want to read the book again.
I put off reading this one a bit because I was crushed with work and because I am not a fan of reunion romances. Well, stupid me.
First of all it isn't really a reunion romance. The hero and heroine have met before but it wasn't a lengthy realtionship that comes with lots of threads to sort out. There were enough knots to untangle but it never sliped into ugly crying and sorrow. I can't really do that right now or never. lol
The romance is fierce as is the explortation of what happens if you fall in love and you have other serious life issues going on at the same time. There are wonderful scence of family as well.
The details of being a perfume maker are amazing as is the setting.
You will love the romance. Go get it. Hurrry. Make yourself happy.
I was given this book for my honest review so there you have it.
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Ruthless, Cynical, Lovers, Enemies…these were the things to describe Damien and Jasmine.
Damien will do anything to grant the wishes of his family. He said he’s ruthless. He’s mean. But is it entirely true?
Jasmine have wished all her life and yet doesn’t believe they will be granted. After her father’s death, after losing her company, she doesn’t have anybody but herself in handling the grief and loss. Will she learn to let anyone in and believe in herself?
When the two meet again after a magical night together, would they bare their souls for the second time for the chance of a future?
From all the books I’ve read from Laura, Matt is my most favorite one. Why? Try reading Once Upon A Rose because you’ll fall in love with a brooding, growling and blushing Rosier. And I’m so happy we get to read about Matt and Layla in here!
This one is most definitely different from all the rest. Both characters has the illusion of being dark and mean but I’ve gradually discovered how sweet and passionate they are that it might have been construed as the opposite. It’s amazing how the Rosier family differs from each other but has the same qualities that makes girls melt into a puddle.
While, in my eyes, no one can top teddy bear Matt with his frequent growls and blushes, Damien is adorable in his own way. Both of the main characters were very vulnerable when they’re with each other. It didn’t start that way. But they gradually learned to let each other in. After finishing this, I admire Damien because he’s not afraid to love. He’s not afraid to have his heart visible to everyone. At the beginning, this might seem uncharacteristic for him, but it is definitely him. He takes care of his family. He takes on the role of the ruthless family member just because.
Laura Florand is the best in making perfume and desserts into something sensual and meaningful. A Wish Upon Jasmine is as aromatic as the perfumes mentioned in the story.
SPOILER: ************************************************
Tristan might’ve met his match with an accountant who makes him furious. While Antoine might be Lucien?
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This is the second story in the Rosier family perfumerie series, but there are also several featuring chocolatiers in Paris in the Amour et Chocolat series, all equally wonderful. Damien is the businessman in the family, the one who makes the money so that the rest of the Rosiers can go about making their perfumes. His reputation is of a ruthless, hard driving, supremely confident man. If you want something done, you go to Damien. It’s a reputation he thrives upon, but is also one that masks his care and concern for his family and the families of those around him whose livelihoods depend on him. He feels the weight of that burden constantly, and it make him appear hard and stoic. There are few who see past that outward facade. When he met Jasmin back in New York she was like a balm for his soul. Meeting as strangers, she knew nothing of him except what he showed her – and what he showed her then was his true heart. They connected on an intimate level, both in and out of bed and he was devastated when she disappeared before he woke the next day, and even more so when they met next and he discovered that the company he was trying to save, to improve so that they would be successful was hers, and that she viewed it as the ultimate betrayal. It only reinforced to him that being open and caring was a mistake, one he wouldn’t make again.
Jasmin comes across as a cynical woman hiding a sweet and tender heart, bearing the grief of the loss of her father who had been ill for some time but succumbed shortly after her one night stand with Damien, at which time she also lost her company. She is down, but not out. The inheritance of a small perfume shop in Grasse beckons her to this small town, though she is fully aware that this is Damien’s territory. If anything this makes her determined to claim this small piece of it, of him, just like he claimed parts of her. When they meet again, the sparks fly – both the sexual attraction and the animosity they now have for each other. Slowly however the truth of their first encounter, the circumstances that Jasmin was under and the false beliefs they had of each other start to crumble the wall they’ve built between them. I loved how this was done slowly, brick by brick, revealing the hurt of the past and the means to mend it. They can’t deny their attraction to each other, and as they start to reconnect, the passion and emotion of their feelings for each other shine through in their steamy love scenes.
All of Laura’s stories involve the senses and this one is no exception, as we experience the scents and sounds of Grasse and Provence. I really enjoyed this glimpse into the world of perfumes, how they are made and especially Jasmin trying to make a personalized scent for Damien, to capture his essence in a bottle. The thread of that weaves through the story as Jasmin’s view of Damien changes when she comes to understand the man that he is and the mistake she made in not believing in what they had started together. The glimpses into the lives of the other characters who live in Grasse, Damien’s family and their history show a deep love for their country. With every story we learn more of what has made this family who they are, and the women who get to hold onto these men are very lucky indeed. Which isn’t to say that they aren’t without their flaws, but at heart they are good, solid men with strong hearts. It’s always a joy to read one of Laura’s stories and I’m delighted with this latest endeavor. 5 stars.
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Let me start off by saying I’m already excited for the next book in Laura Florand’s La Vie en Roses series. A Wish Upon Jasmine, the second book in this series, did not disappoint…in any way. One of the things I love about Laura’s novels is that you can start reading anywhere in a series and not feel lost, although I’m willing to bet few people will be able to stop themselves from going back and reading the rest of the series. In this book we get to know Damien Rosier and Jasmin Bianchi (Jess). There’s humor, intrigue, sexual tension, romance, basically everything I want in a book.
Now about this sexual tension. Florand does a masterful job of weaving anticipation throughout the dialogue, teasing us with glimpses of how hot it’s going to be when Damien and Jess get together again (yes, I said again…aren’t you intrigued?). Damien, who has always been known as the ruthless Rosier, and Jess, who has been dealing with the loss of her father, are at odds, of course. Damien’s drive to succeed, for the benefit of his family and town, has taken over his life. However, the more time he spends with Jess, the more he begins to realize that he needs her to give him the completeness he’s been missing. For Jess, she’s been missing her father, the only family she’s ever really known, and dealing with the difficulty of trying to figure out where her career will take her next. Through a series of past misunderstandings and attempts to clear the air, these two begin to forge a path together, each learning it’s okay to lean on one another for strength and comfort. We see their bond grow, giving us sweetness, and oh yeah, hot sex, too. I highly recommend reading A Wish Upon Jasmine, you won’t regret it.
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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I was lucky enough to get an ARC from Laura, because I am her biggest fan & love everything she writes! :) I wasn't sure I would love Damien, however, because he tried to break up Matt & Layla in the last book! However, I quickly came to love him. He is doing what he does best, being the business sense & helping his family company grow. He DOES have a heart, and apparently Jasmin (Jess) had broken it in a prior one night stand. And he had broken hers through misunderstandings. So, this was a second chance romance, with mistrust in the beginning, but major attraction still looming. There was a lot of beautiful poetic and romantic description in this, predominately in the thoughts of Damien and Jasmin. There are, of course, the meddling relatives, who are all for Damien getting his happy ending. I love how the family perfume business plays into the attraction, with the scents being almost a secondary character. These two both so deserved to finally trust enough to let love it. And the sexual tension! I highly recommend. I would also recommend reading the prior stories to get the background on the Rosier family & business.
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Love Blossoms
This second novel in the La Vie en Roses series, A WISH UPON JASMINE, set against the backdrop of the jasmine harvest in Provence, tells the story of Jasmin Bianchi and Damien Rosier. Jasmin is a perfumer who had a very early mega success with a perfume called Spoiled Brat, but now she wants to go back to following her dream and make small niche personal fragrances. Six months prior, she has survived the catastrophic loss of her father and the small company where some of her dreams were about to come true. And the man who took that company and her heart after a night of passion, Damien Rosier, becomes once again her adversary when she has something vital of his. The Rosier “fairy godmother hardened Resistance war hero,” Tante Collette, has struck again giving away precious parts of the Rosier heritage. Jasmin, or Jess as she is called, had a French father who was an adopted relation to Tante Collette. Collette has given her a perfume shop in the Rosier valley causing the family to once again marshal the troops at this new outrage to try and take it back. And they know the warrior to call: Damien, “the someone ruthless,” who was relied on to “protect everything that was fragile and precious to his family.”
Jess is an artist who paints in fragrance and, as such, has artistic sensibilities. She’s a dreamer who wishes on stars, half expects genies to emerge from perfume bottles, and looks for the ethereal, the beautiful, in fragrances as she is “a girl who still believed in wishes and magic in a world where everyone else knew those were just marketing tools.” Jess has a heart full of love, and Damien has a heart waiting to be filled; however, there are obstacles between them before that can come to fruition. Damien has always been the family Knight Protector and champion. Someone who is hard-hearted in the business world always encased in the armor of a successful businessman to keep out the world out of his home. And though he performs his job extremely well, it’s a hollow victory especially since Damien met Jess and fell hard in love with all the weight of a falling star. Neither one wants to open their hearts again to the cruelties of the world but both are desperately drawn to each other. Jess’s self-esteem issues, her difficulty in dealing with the harsh realities of the cold perfume world pitted against Damien’s belief that his family expected “…him to be the hard one, the merciless one…” keep them from seeing the truth about each other. What starts as a battle turns into a sometimes faltering, sometimes intense dance between two people meant to be together.
The intense fragrances of Provence make a beautiful backdrop for the lush, sensuous words of this story redolent of time, memory, the elements of perfume, and most of all, love. Fragrance swirled emotions dominate Laura Florand’s rich prose to please the reader’s senses with emotions and characters having their own special identifiers that enhance the story. Learning more about the complex substances of flowers and other scents intensifies and elevates this reading experience. A WISH makes me want to spend some time in a perfumer’s shop and jasmine fields absorbing the scents and ferreting out their secrets. As Laura Florand can make her readers long for most exquisite chocolate, she can also make you yearn to know each of those essences mentioned and with her lyrical and captivating prose that always touches the heart, to embrace the fragrance of love.
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