Prima Donna

by Megan Chance

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307461017
• ISBN13: 9780307461018
• Release Date: December 2009
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (CA)
• Length: 418 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Excellent story

Like the reviewer below me here, I think this novel deserves a great deal more praise than some of the reviewers are providing. I couldn't put this book down. There are two simultaneous, eventually converging, stories being told here from the same narrator--one story in the 1870s and one in the 1880s. I found this structure brilliant and engaging, and it keeps the novel moving. I found the relationship between Sabine and Gideon to be fascinating, and the relationship between Margie and Charlotte to be heart-warming. The ending truly surprised me--and I'm hard to surprise. This is well-researched and well written, certainly rising far, far above a lot drek being published today. It is an excellent novel, and I was sorry when it ended.

I was intrigued!!!!

Rarely do I take the time to write a review, but after seeing the mix of them for this book, I just had to put in my two cents because I feel it deserves much more praise than it's getting. The story had me intrigued from the very first page and I could NOT put it down until the very last. Sure, Sabine was not the most likeable of characters but strangely enough, I felt myself symphatizing with her throughout the story. The ending was not what I had expected but I was pleasantly surprised all the same. If you love to read and love getting caught up in whirlwind of a story, then this one is for you!

Prima Donna - I Loved it!

I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction, but I've read all of Megan Chance's books and thoroughly enjoyed every single one. I just finished my second reading of Prima Donna and was equally captivated the second time - turning the pages just as quickly to get the end of a story I'd already read! Interesting to read other reviews. People don't like Sabine - she's not all that likable, but it makes the book very likable because it creates great tension. In my opinion, what makes a work great -- be it a book or a movie -- isn't whether you like the characters, but whether you believe them, whether they have dimension and come alive for you - whether you truly are able to suspend belief, even for a moment - and if it's longer than a moment, all the better.... If you hate a character, that means passion has been aroused in you, that the author has done their job of making the character three-dimensional and real. I found the story fascinating and the level of detail in Chance's books grab me every time - if I can see the story, picture the surroundings and really 'feel' the characters, I consider it a win. More than that though, I really enjoyed this book - the issues of what women need to do to get ahead in the world - then and now - and the details about opera and singing, and music and passion...and life in NYC and Seattle in those years - it all jumped off the page for me, and I found myself, after finishing the book for the second time, wondering about the characters and what might happen to them next. That's always a good sign for me. I read a lot and I forget a lot -the ones that stay with me and keep me thinking are my favorites. My only complaint is being completely caught up on her books and having to wait for the next! I'm a fan.

Very, very good (4.5 stars)

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.