Mozart's Wife (Books We Love Historical Romance) [Kindle Edition]

Juliet Waldron (Author)

Book Description

Giddy sugarplum or calculating bitch?

Pretty Konstanze aroused strong feelings among her contemporaries. Her in-law's loathed her. Mozart's friends, more than forty years after his death, remained eager to gossip about her "failures" as wife to the world's first superstar. Maturing from child, to wife, to hard-headed widow, Konstanze would pay Mozart's debts, provide for their children, and relentlessly market and mythologize her brilliant husband. Mozart's letters attest to his affection for Konstanze as well as to their powerful sexual bond. Nevertheless, prominent among the many mysteries surrounding the composer's untimely death: why did his much beloved Konstanze never mark his grave?


This is a multi-faceted novel which brilliantly joins the nomenclature of romantic and historical fiction. I would recommend this novel to lovers of music, lovers of history, and just plain lovers. --Knowbetter.com


Juliet Waldron brings Konstanze and her wayward genius of a spouse to vivid life. She avoids the pitfall of the biographical novelist by refusing to make either of them the villain, and her insights into character are extraordinary. --Liz Burton, The Blue Iris Journal


Mozart's Wife is a story of love, jealousy, grief and most importantly--forgiveness. ...Fastpaced; Ms. Waldron has exquisite, flowing prose. .. a must read... --Kim Murphy, Sime-Gen


Waldron's writing is humorous, erotic, and fluid. Her beautiful use of words reveals the delicate, volatile intimacy inherent in marriage. In the antagonist, Waldron characterizes a woman's quiet (and sometimes not so quiet) struggle to remain the dutiful wife while also protecting her children and herself from her husband's self-destructive behavior. Mozart's Wife is a consuming piece that reminds us that all humans, regardless of talent or skill, are within the boundaries of fault and outside the lines of perfection. I highly recommend this wonderful book. --Melissa Levine,

Don't miss My Mozart by Juliet Waldron, the story of Mozart's mistress, also from Books We Love

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is a multi-faceted novel which brilliantly joins the nomenclature of romantic and historical fiction. I would recommend this novel to lovers of music, lovers of history, and just plain lovers. --Knowbetter.com

Juliet Waldron brings Konstanze and her wayward genius of a spouse to vivid life. She avoids the pitfall of the biographical novelist by refusing to make either of them the villain, and her insights into character are extraordinary. --Liz Burton, The Blue Iris Journal

Mozart's Wife is a story of love, jealousy, grief and most importantly--forgiveness. ...Fastpaced; Ms. Waldron has exquisite, flowing prose. .. a must read... --Kim Murphy, Sime-Gen

Waldron's writing is humorous, erotic, and fluid. Her beautiful use of words reveals the delicate, volatile intimacy inherent in marriage. In the antagonist, Waldron characterizes a woman's quiet (and sometimes not so quiet) struggle to remain the dutiful wife while also protecting her children and herself from her husband's self-destructive behavior. Mozart's Wife is a consuming piece that reminds us that all humans, regardless of talent or skill, are within the boundaries of fault and outside the lines of perfection. I highly recommend this wonderful book. --Melissa Levine,

About the Author

“Not all who wander are lost.” Juliet Waldron was baptized in the yellow spring of a small Ohio farm town. She earned a B. A. in English, but has worked at jobs ranging from artist’s model to brokerage. Twenty-five years ago, after the kids left home, she dropped out of 9-5 and began to write, hoping to create a genuine time travel experience for herself—and her readers—by researching herself into the Past. Mozart’s Wife won the 1st Independent e-Book Award. Genesee originally won the 2003 Epic Award for Best Historical, and she’s delighted that it’s available again from Books We Love. She enjoys cats, long hikes, history books and making messy gardens with native plants. She’s happy to ride behind her husband on his big “bucket list” sport bike.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 636 KB
• Print Length: 389 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Books We Love Ltd. (August 30, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004XNZVXQ
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #142,604 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 80 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Historical anti-romance January 8, 2002

By Philip Challinor

Format:Paperback

The tortures of the Inquisition wouldn't induce me to confess to reading historical romances, so Mozart's Wife is perforce a historical love story. It's the first-person narrative of Konstanze Marie, nee Weber and in later life Nissen, who has been almost exclusively vilified or ignored through seven generations of her husband's biographers. They see a great genius dead at thirty-five, an unmarked grave and a widow minting cash from his manuscripts. Konstanze's story redresses the balance with an engaging and thoroughly engrossing picture of life as a woman in the late eighteenth century - the complexities of love and marriage, the practicalities of running a household, the horror of "dishonour" and the agony and danger of childbirth - and, in Konstanze's case, the additional complication of her brilliant, charming, vulgar, gentle, generous, philandering, feckless, irresistible and totally incorrigible husband. Though nearly immune to his musical gifts (her favourite of his operas, not unjustifiably in the circumstances, is the one that made the most money), Konstanze clearly contributes more to the survival of his work than the great man himself ever thought of doing. But although Konstanze touchingly recounts her life after Wolfgang's death, it's the Mozarts' life together that takes up most of the book, and it's the details of that life that compel the attention - the characterisation of Mozart's cold, stern and uppity family; the moving from place to place, buoyed up by an adoring Prague only to be dragged down by an indifferent Vienna; the endless, unwinnable battle to try and clear up the disaster area that is Mozart's finances; the exhausting and perilous ordeals of pregnancy, childbirth and what is nowadays blandly called "infant mortality".... If, towards the end of the book, Konstanze starts to behave very much like the hard-nosed money-grubber her detractors have accused her of being, it's more a cause for sadness than surprise. Her story doesn't end there, however, and in an exquisitely moving scene at Mozart's grave she finally makes her peace with his memory. Written with a light touch behind which lies a huge wealth of research, Mozart's Wife is definitely historical, decidedly unromantic, and quite captivating. Read more ›

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars THIS is life with Mozart!! April 12, 2002

By "aschneid1"

Format:Paperback

THIS is life with Mozart from his wife's point of view...
The story will transport you back to the 18th century, reads easily and is entirely engrossing. It was one of the few books that has kept me up reading until the sun rose! The writing is so stark and raw, no flowery romanticism, just honest, straightforward realism. Although I personally found neither Mozart nor Konstanze likable, they were completely, charmingly, and utterly human, flaws and all.
Mozart's Wife is one of the best books I have read in many years. I highly recommend that you don't waste another day without reading this incredible book!

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Life and the Artist November 26, 2001

By K.A. Corlett

Format:Paperback

Mozart's Wife by Juliet Waldron is a richly textured and painstakingly researched trip into the eighteenth century. Waldron's prose is clean, infinitely readable. She develops her characters brilliantly and without sentimentality. The overriding sense is that of *the real*: Stanzi Mozart is voluptuous, spirited, and wretched by turns. What is life lived in the shadow of a genius? Exaltation, poverty, at times madness. Mozart's Wife lays before the reader the picture of a man overcome by the Muse, and the woman who struggles to live with him, keep their meager household, and rear their children. Mozart in essence, remains a puzzle: it has been posited that the heightened sensitivity of artistic genius may render life too painful to bear, and that this is why so many truly brilliant musicians, poets, or writers enter a cycle of inevitable self-destruction. They burn with a blinding light and extinguish themselves. Mozart's Wife takes up this theme in the relationship of Wolfgang and Stanzi; the opiate for Mozart's pain is the female form. Waldron doesn't lapse into romanticism, however. Her characters seize the reader from the outset because they are genuine-their hopes, fears, joy, and pain become our own. The author has the uncanny ability to place us in the conjugal bed, in the midst of a pain-riddled childbirth, a dying man's vision, or at the Opera with equal dexterity. Most telling, when Stanzi must face the reality of her feelings after many years by Mozart's side, we have been there with her; we've mourned and adored and torn our hair.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Lively Look at Mozart's Spouse September 15, 2006

By Susan Higginbotham VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I found Mozart's Wife to be absorbing and well-written. It follows Konstanze's life as she grows from a naive young girl to a capable, shrewd woman, her marriage as it disintegrates under the pressures of too many bills, infant mortality, and infidelity.

Konstanze is the narrator here, and her voice is a refreshing one: informal, earthy without becoming coarse, candid, un-self-pitying, and wry. She and Mozart are highly flawed but likable people, who never forfeit our sympathies even as they act appallingly toward each other and toward others. That's very difficult for an author to pull off, and Waldron does it admirably.

Waldron has a nice eye for detail. As a mistress of Mozart's departs the cramped household, she is accompanied by her cats: "Her calico Mutzie and tiger Murr followed, tails up, for all the world like a couple of well-behaved dogs out for a walk."

The book does feel a little disjointed in spots. For instance, Konstanze spends much of Chapter 20 fussing over an impending visit from Leopold, Mozart's difficult father, but the visit is never depicted; when we next hear of Leopold two chapters later, the matter seems to have been forgotten. Did something get cut? I also felt that too little emphasis was placed on Mozart's Masonic ties, considering the crucial role they later assumed in Waldron's explanation of his death and obscure burial.

All in all, though, I enjoyed this book thoroughly.

More About the Author

"Not all who wander are lost." Juliet Waldron earned a B. A. in English, but has worked at jobs ranging from artist's model to brokerage. Twenty-five years ago, after the kids left home, she dropped out of 9-5 and began to write, hoping to create a genuine time travel experience for her readers. "Mozart's Wife" won the 1st Independent e-Book Award and still, many years later, garners high praise. I've recently published "My Mozart" which is the companion novel, a passionate story of love and madness told by a young fan. "Genesee," set during the American Revolution won the 2003 Epic Award for Best Historical. Juliet is delighted that both books are again available from Amazon and Books We Love. A historical romance set in German country, PA, "Hand-me-Down Bride," published by Second Wind Publishing, is based on the immigration story of a great grandmother. "Red Magic," a romantic adventure set in 18th Century Austria, tells the story of a spoiled, proud young woman who has to grow up fast when she's forced into a marriage with a man she despises. Her latest novel, "Roan Rose" is a medieval novel "owed" to the last Plantagenent King since the day she was introduced to him by reading "The Daughter of Time," more than fifty years ago.

She enjoys playing doorwoman for cats, long hikes, reading about history and archeology, and making messy gardens with native plants. She rides behind her husband of forty-nine years on his bucket list bike, a Hyabusa. Three granddaughters, one all grown up, make her incredibly proud.