The paperback edition of Alyssa Harad's Coming to My Senses, the US edition of Denyse Beaulieu's The Perfume Lover, plus Cult Perfumes by Tessa Williams, and two novels — The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro and Scent of Darkness by Margot Berwin.

Coming To My Senses by Alyssa Harad

Published last year in hardback (see our Q&A here), the new paperback edition (see above) is due for release in June.

Cover price $16, Amazon is currently showing a pre-order price of $10.88.

(via amazon)

The Perfume Lover by Denyse Beaulieu

Published last year overseas (see our Q&A here), the new US hardback edition (see above) is due for release later this month. Aedes de Venustas in New York City will be hosting an event with the author; stay tuned for details!

Cover price $25.99, Amazon is currently showing a pre-order price of $14.76; the Kindle edition is $12.99.

(via amazon)

Cult Perfumes by Tessa Williams

Even in times of economic hardship, perfume is an affordable luxury, recognized for its ability to make us not only smell good but also feel great. No woman’s dressing table or bathroom cabinet is complete without at least one bottle. Cult Perfumes is the first book to explore the most exclusive boutique perfumeries producing some of the world’s most captivating scents. Tessa Williams documents more than 25 perfumeries and brands, ranging from the pharmacy of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, established by Dominican fathers in 1221, and the classic English company Floris, founded in 1730, to the new eponymous range created by the famed fragrance expert Roja Dove. Williams goes behind the scenes at each perfumery to interview the perfumers and explore the evolution of the company, the ethos behind the brand, and its signature scents. With a concise illustrated introduction to the history of perfume-making and features on iconic perfumes, future cult classics, and the so-called ‘noses’ who keep the brands attuned to today’s popular scents, Cult Perfumes will be as alluring to lovers and collectors of perfume as the fragrances it presents.

192 pages; cover price $49.95. Amazon currently shows a US publication date for April and a pre-order price of $29.51.

(via amazon)

The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

At 27, Grace Monroe is an unfulfilled newly-wed with an unladylike talent for advanced mathematics. Despite her best efforts, she doesn’t fit anyone’s expectations of a successful 1950’s London socialite, least of all her own. And when she discovers her husband is having an affair, her already slipping facade threatens to come crashing down.

So when she inherits a flat in Paris from a woman she’s never met, it seems the perfect opportunity to escape. Grace travels to France to try to discover not only who her mysterious benefactor is, but also to piece together events that led to her own fractured identity.

Set in Paris, New York, and Monte Carlo, in a world of fashion and high treason, this is a beautifully fragrant story which weaves through the decades from the 1920’s to 1950’s as well as through the hearts and histories of two extraordinary women.

The novel is due for publication in May. 496 pages; Amazon shows the hardcover cover price as $24.99 and a pre-order price of $14.98, $13.99 for the Kindle edition.

(via press release)

Scent of Darkness by Margot Berwin

In her best-selling debut, Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire, Margot Berwin brought us to the rain forests of Mexico—to a land of shamans, spirit animals, and snake charmers—in the search for nine rare and valuable plants. Now, with her hotly anticipated second novel, Berwin takes us somewhere darker: deep into the bayous of Louisiana, to a world of fortune-tellers, soothsayers, and potent elixirs. Scent of Darkness is a magical, seductive story about the power of scent, and about what happens when a perfume renders a young woman irresistible.

Evangeline grows up understanding the extraordinary effects of fragrance. Her grandmother Louise is a gifted aromata, a master of scent-making and perfume. When Eva was a girl, Louise carefully explained that lavender under her pillow would make her dream of the man she would marry; eucalyptus would make her taller; almandine, fatter; and jasmine, Louise promised, would wrap her life in a mystery. When Eva is eighteen, Louise leaves her the ultimate gift—a scent created just for her. The small perfume vial is accompanied by a note in Louise’s slanted script: “Do not remove the stopper, Evangeline, unless you want everything in your life to change.”

From the moment Eva places a drop—the essence of fire, leather, rose, and jasmine—on her neck, men dance closer to her, women bury their noses deep into her hair, even the cats outside her bedroom cry to be near her. After a lifetime spent blending into the background, Eva is suddenly the object of intense desire to everyone around her. Strangers follow her down the street; a young boy appears at her door asking for a favor; and two men, one kind and good, the other dark and seductive, fall deeply, madly in love with her. As her greatest gift becomes an unbearable curse, Eva must uncover the secret of her scent and the message her grandmother, the woman who loved her most, wanted to tell her.

Published in January of this year. 240 pages, hardback cover price $25, current price at Amazon is $16.50 or $11.99 for the Kindle edition.

(via amazon, found via press release)