The Collector of Dying Breaths, M J Rose

Jac L’Etoile’s beloved brother Robbie is close to death, the police suspect that the Chinese triads are behind the killing and that puts Jac in danger too. With his dying breath Robbie urges her to complete a project he was working on at a magnificent chateau in Fontainebleau.

When she meets the owner, an eccentric heiress, Jac learns of Rene la Florentine, plucked from a death sentence to become perfumier to Catherine de Medici. The queen didn’t just use him to make perfumes and he pursued the heresy that a person’s soul could be preserved and transferred to another body, just by capturing their last breath. Robbie and Jac’s friend and lover Griffin North were in the midst of recreating that formula.

As Jac watches Rene’s heartbreaking story play out, the heiress becomes increasingly erratic. The woman will do anything to preserve her legacy no matter who is in her way. But as Jac’s time lines criss-cross she learns Rene’s terrible secret and this could cost her Griffin’s life.