Prima Donna: A Novel [Paperback]

Megan Chance (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 29, 2009

Opera singer Sabine Conrad is the toast of nineteenth-century New York high society. A celebrated soprano with the voice of an angel, she is showered with adulation by her audiences and courted by wealthy patrons. But behind the scenes, her every move is controlled by a Svengali-like manager, Gideon Price. When her attempt to escape him goes tragically awry, she flees, leaving behind a grisly murder.

Three years later, as Marguerite Olson, she has put aside the prima donna she once was to run a low-class theater in Seattle. Hidden among prostitutes, drunks, and miners, a desperate and determined Marguerite carefully guards the secrets of her old life—until her past returns to offer a terrifying proposition.  

Prima Donna captures both the glittering decadence of New York and the rough raunchy waterfront of Seattle, as Marguerite, caught between two worlds, must find the strength to confront the truth of her past and choose which voice defines her in this dark and harrowing novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of Chance's heady if at times overheated Victorian historical, Sabine Conrad, an ambitious opera singer wounded in a violent encounter whose significance doesn't become clear until later, flees New York City with her jewels. Months later, in February 1878, the by now penniless Sabine reaches Seattle, Washington Territory, where she gets a job as a scrubwoman at the Palace, a whore house that provides musical entertainment in the frontier city's red-light district. Sabine, who's adopted the name Margie Olson, helps the Palace's proprietor, Johnny Langford, realize his dream of turning the place into a legitimate theater. Chance (The Spiritualist) deftly explores the hardships the former prima donna endures overseeing Langford's entertainers, even as Sabine yearns to return to the stage herself. Melodramatic excerpts from Sabine's youthful journal chronicling her opera career provide counterpoint in an erotic thriller full of lively period detail. (Jan.)
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Review

"Riveting...a guilty pleasure that is nearly impossible to stop reading."
—Seattle Times

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; Original edition (December 29, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307461017
• ISBN-13: 978-0307461018
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.9 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #330,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very, very good (4.5 stars), December 29, 2009

By 

K. Huff (Radnor, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Prima Donna: A Novel (Paperback)

This novel opens with a murder. In its aftermath, feted soprano Sabine Conrad flees her life in New York in the late 1870s to start a new one in Seattle, as Marguerite Olson, a few years later. She takes a job at a boxhouse, first as a cleaner and later as the theater's joint manager. Her partner, Johnny, dreams of turning the boxhouse into a real theatre, but Marguerite always fears that her past life and actions will come back to haunt her--as indeed it does. The novel is told through diary entries made by Sabine, and also later, when she is Marguerite. Right from the very first sentence of this novel, I was hooked on this book.

I've read three of Megan Chances novels, and they've all been enjoyable, fast-paced reads. Prima Donna, like The Spiritualist: : A Novel and An Inconvenient Wife, is well-researched, and draws you in to the Victorian era like few other novels can. It's an extremely absorbing novel that I never really wanted to put down. Her previous books have a bit more suspense to them, but this is equally enjoyable nonetheless. Without trying to give anything away (and I know I'm being very vague here), what I started out thinking had happened turned out not to be the case--to my surprise and delight. I'm not sure if the author meant for her readers to think what I did, but it was effective nonetheless.

Character development is equally strong, though I thought that out of the main characters, Johnny's is the weakest. For example, we never know much about his backstory, and, given his personality, his actions towards the end of the novel are not really believable. Still, the best character in this book is Marguerite/Sabine, who fairly leaps off the page--first as a naive, slightly breathy teenager, and then later as a world-knowledgeable woman in her twenties. It's clear that Marguerite/ Sabine has grown up over the years. Equally strong was her complicated relationship with Gideon Price--clearly, not a good influence on Marguerite, but someone who she's attracted to nonetheless. With the exception of the flaw I mentioned above, I really, really enjoyed this book. Read The Spiritualist and An Inconvenient Wife if you haven't already, as well as this one; you won't be disappointed.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Hitting My "Favorite Heroines" List, December 29, 2009

By 

Tara (Utah) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Prima Donna: A Novel (Paperback)

This story is told from two different view points. One viewpoint is twenty seven year old Sabine who is living in Seattle and working in a saloon hiring prostitutes and constantly looking over her shoulder in fear that her past will catch up with her. The other viewpoint is seventeen year old Sabine's journal and it talks about the opera and her lovers and the all the scandal and family problems. The journal also slowly leads readers step by step towards understanding why and how Seattle Sabine is in the situation she is in.

I did not care for the journal of young Sabine. Thru her words readers visit the scandalous and heated backstages of 1800s opera, but it is literally a soap opera about the opera. Everybody is sleeping with everybody else and on top of being incredibly selfish, spoiled, and wanton, Sabine is also unbelievably naive. Her lover, Gideon takes women left and right and she cannot figure him out? Her jewelry also keeps disappearing. Hello, Sabine? Anybody home in that brain? Something else I found bothersome was that anytime Sabine and Gideon have words, they must sum it up with rough sex.

Seattle Sabine is not much better. Tho she lacks the fame, money, and pretty dresses, she still offers her body to get what she wants and thinks only of herself. Tho hiding from her past and those that are searching for her, her vanity and love of her own voice may be her downfall. She begins a show business venture with her current lover and it is only a matter of time before her past catches up to her and she has a decision to make.

I was all prepared to give this four stars due to the amazing historical details and the fact that I truly felt I was on the rainy streets of 1878 Seattle, but just when I thought Sabine was finally redeeming herself, I lost what little respect I had for her around page 334. The ending left me feeling empty. I feel Sabine went back to square one and well... what was the point of all this then?

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very Unlikeable Lead Character..., January 7, 2010

By 

Mercedes L. Johnmeyer "The Most Happy" (Summerville, SC) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Prima Donna: A Novel (Paperback)

I've read two of Ms. Chance's previous novels, 'An Inconvenient Wife', which is one of my favorite books EVER, and 'The Spiritualist', which was just 'Eh'. It was a very strange book. I've had 'Prima Donna' on my wishlist forever it seems, impatiently waiting for it to be released. I had high hopes for it...until the synopsis was released. I am NOT a fan of Opera, or theatre, but I do love period novels, so figured I'd still give it a go.

Right off the bat I didn't like Marguerite/Sabine very much, and my dislike for her only intensified throughout the novel. The book alternates between her in Seattle under an assumed name, and her journal entries starting from when she was sixteen. I really began to dread the journal entries. Sabine was an incredibly spoiled brat who was unable to make her own decisions, then would blame everyone else around her when things didn't go her way. Her manager/lover Gideon wasn't much better. They were so destructive together that I would become very angry while reading this...not how I like my books to make me feel.

Older, Seattle Sabine (Marguerite), was not much better. Any time she wanted something, or didn't get her way, she morphed into a flaming whore. Really! Even as a teenager, in the journal entries, everything was about sex. Her and Gideon would fight (which was pretty much all the time), and they would end up having violent sex...she needed money or the notice of society, so she'd sleep with a wealthy man twice her age, then complaine about how she felt cheap...ahhh, she WAS!! And she KEPT doing it...that's what drove me crazy!

By the end of the book, I was almost exhausted from reading page after page of Marguerite lying to her Seattle friends and lovers. Of her back-and-fourth of 'What an I gonna do?' Where am I gonna go'? Senseless lie upon lie that she doled out to her boss/lover Johnny, and how she would sometimes lie to her only friend Charlotte for seemingly no reason. UGH!! Anyway, in the end, I didn't HATE the book...I mean, I did finish it. It'll keep you reading just to find out what happened, and why Sabine ran away from her life, and who she murdered...however be prepared. Sabine is a most unlikeable character, and I'd be SHOCKED if you didn't find yourself wanting to hurl the book across the room at least once.