The Venus Fix
by M.J. Rose
List Price: $6.99
Pages: 416
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 077832317X
Publisher: Mira Books
International bestselling author M. J. Rose returns with the third thrilling book in her Butterfield Institute series featuring sex therapist/reluctant crime solver Dr. Morgan Snow. The Venus Fix follows Dr. Snow as she strives to make the connection between murdered online Web cam sex performers and her clients.
As one of New York's top sex therapists, Dr. Morgan Snow sees everything from the abused to the depraved. From high-profile clients with twisted obsessions to courageous survivors, the Butterfield Institute is the sanctuary to heal battered souls.
Morgan's newest patient is a powerful, influential man --- secretly addicted to watching Internet Web cam pornography. But he's not alone in those desires. Morgan's also working with a group of high school teenagers equally and dangerously obsessed with these real-time fantasies. Fantasies that are all too accessible.
Then the women start dying online, right in front of their eyes. Now it's all about murder.
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1. The Venus Fix stands for The Venus fixation --- teenage boys fixation with girls on the web and the teenage girls fixation as they try to compete with the webcam girls. Is this a danger of the modern age or is it a new version of something that's always been around. Are kids actually in more danger today?
2. Morgan is torn between wanting to help the police and doctor/patient confidentiality. Do you think she made the right decision in keeping to her oath and respecting Amanda's secret?
3. In The Venus Fix, Morgan's personal life impinges, to some degree, on her professional life. How is the love plot --- her interest in Noah and hers in him --- incorporated into the suspense plot?
4. Stella Dobson has strong feelings about internet pornography which lead to her doing something terrible wrong --- but can you sympathize with her position on internet porn?
5. As the plot proceeds, is it possible to guess or deduce the killer? If so, at what point is it possible, and on what grounds?
6. What do you think should be done about teenagers and internet porn?.
7. T. Meyers - who reviewed The Venus Fix - for THE HUFFINGTON POST said: "A good story has the power to make us understand things in a way that even the most graphic facts cannot. With The Venus Fix, the third book in her compelling Butterfield Institute series, M.J. Rose has done something remarkable. She's written a thriller which gives us not only a momentary scare--an intake of breath--but a lasting one."
Do you think this story helped you understand internet porn addiction in a different way? Did it give you any insights you didn't have before?
8. Critic David J. Montgomery said: "The plot of The Venus Fix is fresh and intriguing, but it is the characters that push this thriller to such a high level. The relationships that fill it -- mother-daughter, doctor-patient, girlfriend-boyfriend -- are so well-developed and so real that the story takes on considerable power and poignancy. "
How did you feel about the characters and their relationships in this novel? Did you feel this kind of depth of characterization made your more invested in the book? Did it make the book more memorable for you?
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