Be Frank with Me
Julia Claiborne Johnson, 2016
HarperCollins
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062413710
Summary
Reclusive literary legend M. M. "Mimi" Banning has been holed up in her Bel Air mansion for years. But after falling prey to a Bernie Madoff-style ponzi scheme, she’s flat broke.
Now Mimi must write a new book for the first time in decades, and to ensure the timely delivery of her manuscript, her New York publisher sends an assistant to monitor her progress. The prickly Mimi reluctantly complies—with a few stipulations: No Ivy-Leaguers or English majors.
Must drive, cook, tidy. Computer whiz. Good with kids. Quiet, discreet, sane.
When Alice Whitley arrives at the Banning mansion, she’s put to work right away—as a full-time companion to Frank, the writer’s eccentric nine-year-old, a boy with the wit of Noel Coward, the wardrobe of a 1930s movie star, and very little in common with his fellow fourth-graders.
As she slowly gets to know Frank, Alice becomes consumed with finding out who Frank’s father is, how his gorgeous "piano teacher and itinerant male role model" Xander fits into the Banning family equation—and whether Mimi will ever finish that book.
Full of heart and countless "only-in-Hollywood" moments, Be Frank with Me is a captivating and unconventional story of an unusual mother and son, and the intrepid young woman who finds herself irresistibly pulled into their unforgettable world. (From the pubisher.)
Author Bio
Julia Claiborne Johnson worked at Mademoiselle and Glamour magazines before marrying and moving to Los Angeles, where she lives with her comedy-writer husband and their two children. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Frank Banning may be the most endearing scene-stealer you’ll ever meet in the pages of a book.... Johnson proves it’s possible to write a comic novel that, at times, is heartbreaking.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Readers will find themselves captivated.
People
Hilarious, poignant and full of unexpected gems, BE FRANK WITH ME illuminates the strange ways literature can parallel life, and introduces readers to one of the most charming, lovable and maddening children in fiction.
Huffington Post
Delightful. You will laugh out loud.
Slate
Witty dialogue, irresistible characters, and a touch of mystery make this sweet debut about a quirky Hollywood family an enjoyable page-turner.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Johnson's magnificently poignant, funny, and wholly original debut goes beyond page-turner status. Readers will race to the next sentence. And the next. Her charming, flawed, quietly courageous characters, each wonderfully different, demand a second reading while we impatiently await the author's second work. —Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI
Library Journal
Poor Alice has her hands full navigating these socially disabled characters through the disasters they bring upon themselves while also endeavoring to solve mysteries about their past and getting tangled up with their sexy family friend Xander. The curious incident of where'd you go, Salinger: clever, sweet, but a bit derivative.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Be Frank with Me...then take off on your own:
1. What's the matter with M.M. Banning—not just that she was swindled out of a fortune...but what's really wrong with her? Deeply wrong?
2. Frank never receives a "formal diagnosis" in the book. Does he need one? Would you consider him Asperger-ish? Describe some of his more unusual qualities, especially his sartorial habits. Do you find him endearing...or not?
3. What is Alice like? She appears naive, but is she? Would you say that's she's the ideal person for the job? In what way might you say she's a foil for Alice?
4. Follow up to Question 3: Why is Alice so interested in finding out who Frank's father is?
5. Why does Mimi never warm up to Alice?
6. Comparisons have been made with this book and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. If you've read Mark Haddon's novel, do you see similarities between the two books?
7. Mimi describes the other mothers in California this way:
If you ask me, I think every small town mean girl in America who's pretty but not much else comes out here to die. The ones who smile like lunatics and wear yoga pants all day are the worst. At PTA meetings they're like those chickens that have to wear tiny glasses in poultry barns so they won't peck each other's eyes out.
If you're from California, does this description offend you? Or does it fit? If you're not from California, do you know people (men or women) like this?
8. Zander—what about him? He seems reliable but not always, and he can't seem to commit to anyone. Why not? Once Zander enters the story, the focus of the novel shifts. What does his character bring to the plot?
9. Almost everyone in this book is affected by loss: how does each character cope with his/her sadness? Is it ever possible to fill the gap someone has left behind?
10. Did you find the book funny? Pinpoint and read aloud some of the more humorous passages.
11.Consider the ending: does it tie up all the loose strings...or feel somewhat unresolved? Some love the ending, others find it lacking. What do you think?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Black Rabbit Hall
Eve Chase, 2016
G.P. Putnam's Sons
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399174124
Summary
A magnetic debut novel of wrenching family secrets, forbidden love, and heartbreaking loss housed within the grand gothic manor of Black Rabbit Hall.
Ghosts are everywhere, not just the ghost of Momma in the woods, but ghosts of us too, what we used to be like in those long summers . . .
Amber Alton knows that the hours pass differently at Black Rabbit Hall, her London family’s country estate, where no two clocks read the same.
Summers there are perfect, timeless. Not much ever happens. Until, of course, it does.
More than three decades later, Lorna is determined to be married within the grand, ivy-covered walls of Pencraw Hall, known as Black Rabbit Hall among the locals. But as she’s drawn deeper into the overgrown grounds, half-buried memories of her mother begin to surface.
Lorna soon finds herself ensnared within the manor’s labyrinthine history, overcome with an insatiable need for answers about her own past and that of the once-happy family whose memory still haunts the estate.
Stunning and atmospheric, this debut novel is a thrilling spiral into the hearts of two women separated by decades but inescapably linked by the dark and tangled secrets of Black Rabbit Hall (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Eve Chase is the pseudonym of a journalist who has worked for a variety of magazines in the UK. She lives in Oxford, England, writing in a small garden shed, which she and her husband built—a way, she says, to get out of the house without having to rent office space.
Chase admits she's always been fascinated by houses...
[E]specially these old English homes, these ancestral houses that get passed down from generation to generation. More than bricks, stone, and mortar are passed down—along with the responsibility and great cost of upkeep, the secrets and scandals of the manor are passed on to future generations.
Another idea that caught Chase's fancy revolved around a group of children at play in one of those ancestral houses, particularly one that was falling apart. Those children—and the house—became characters in her first novel, Black Rabbit Hall, published in 2016. (Adapted from Huffington Post.)
Book Reviews
A house, not a person, is the star of Chase’s debut novel—an ivy-covered country estate in Cornwall. Required Reading
New York Post
Like the setting of Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Chase’s novel is lovely, dark and deep. But if you start it after sunset, you’ll likely have hours to go before you sleep. And when you awake, you might find that you have dreamed of Black Rabbit Hall again.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
A gorgeously written novel describing the love and affection that hold families together and the powerful forces that can tear them apart.
Huffington Post
[A] leisurely paced modern British gothic.... [Lorna's] exposé of the family secrets paves the way to the upbeat resolution. Chase deserves high marks for her atmospheric setting and vivid prose, and fans of old-fashioned gothic stories will find this a winner.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Pencraw Hall...is still inhabited by the elderly former matron, Mrs. Alton, who is...desperate for money to maintain the residence...allows Lorna to tease out information about the house and the family's tragic past. Verdict: Chase's heart-wrenching first novel is equal parts romance, mystery, and historical fiction. —Jennifer Funk, McKendree Univ. Lib., Lebanon, IL
Library Journal
For fans of Kate Morton and Daphne du Maurier, Black Rabbit Hall is an obvious must-read, but it is sure to please any reader who delights in devilishly thrilling dramas.... There is a dreamy quality to the writing that gives the novel the tenor of a Gothic fairy tale, and although there is a sense of malice and danger that thrums beneath it all, Chase’s achingly beautiful investigation of her characters’ inner lives results in a story that is haunting rather than scary.
BookPage
Debut novelist Chase weaves together Lorna's investigations with Amber's tribulations, a tapestry embroidered with madness, a horrifying accident, and malicious lies. Compellingly readable and riddled with twists and turns worthy of Daphne du Maurier, Chase's tale will delight fans of romantic mysteries.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Lorna and Amber are two very different women at very different places in their lives, but both are forever changed by events that occur at Black Rabbit Hall. In what ways are these women similar? How are they different? Did you relate to one character more than the other?
2. As children, Amber and Toby are almost inseparable, but after their mother’s death they both change dramatically—Amber reflects that she “no longer feel[s] like a girl inside” (p. 93), and Toby becomes increasingly angry and wild. Why do you think the twins grow apart, instead of together? Do you think they would have stayed close if Momma had lived? Why or why not?
3. During her first visit to Black Rabbit Hall, Lorna discovers a horse’s skull displayed in the library. Why do you think Mr. and then Mrs. Alton kept this, and why is it displayed so visibly? Do you agree with their choice? Jon comments, “This lot would stuff their own ancestors, given half a chance.” What do you think he means?
4. Which Alton sibling is your favorite? Why? Which sibling do you most identify with? Are they the same character?
5. When the novel begins, Amber is fourteen. After the Alton family tragedy, however, she is forced to grow up quickly and take responsibility for her siblings. How do you think this responsibility affects her relationship with Lucian? How did you respond to their relationship? Did you have a “first love,” and if so, did you relate to Amber’s feelings? Why or why not?
6. Lorna is enchanted by Black Rabbit Hall, knowing from the beginning this is where she’d like to be married. But as she explores, she feels more and more drawn to the family that lived there. Why did you first think she felt so tied to the Alton children? Is there somewhere from your family’s past that you won’t ever forget? Have you explored your own family history, and if so, did you find anything surprising?
7. Discuss the character of Caroline Alton. She admits to Lorna that she found her stepchildren “unfathomable” (p. 168). Do you think she is a bad stepmother? Are her actions ever justified?
8. As Lorna finds herself pulled further into the hallways and history of Black Rabbit Hall, she feels increasingly distant from Jon. Did you feel frustrated with Lorna’s treatment of the wedding? Did you feel frustrated with Jon? At one point Lorna thinks of an ex who claimed that Lorna “tests” relationships to see if they’re worth saving. Do you think this is true?
9. Nancy Alton remains a beacon of beauty and grace throughout the novel. Why do you think Eve Chase wrote her as an American? In what ways is she different from Caroline? Are the two women ever alike, and should they be?
10. Lorna finds much more than a wedding venue when she finally understands what happened at Black Rabbit Hall. Were you surprised by the ending? How do you feel about the Alton children, decades later?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Forgetting Time
Sharon Guskin, 2016
Flatiron Books
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250076427
Summary
Noah wants to go home. A seemingly easy request from most four year olds.
But as Noah's single-mother, Janie, knows, nothing with Noah is ever easy. One day the pre-school office calls and says Janie needs to come in to talk about Noah, and no, not later, now—and life as she knows it stops.
For Jerome Anderson, life as he knows it has stopped. A deadly diagnosis has made him realize he is approaching the end of his life. His first thought—I'm not finished yet. Once a shining young star in academia, a graduate of Yale and Harvard, a professor of psychology, he threw it all away because of an obsession. Anderson became the laughing stock of his peers, but he didn't care—something had to be going on beyond what anyone could see or comprehend.
He spent his life searching for that something else. And with Noah, he thinks he's found it.
Soon Noah, Janie and Anderson will find themselves knocking on the door of a mother whose son has been missing for eight years—and when that door opens, all of their questions will be answered.
Sharon Guskin has written a captivating, thought-provoking novel that explores what we regret in the end of our lives and hope for in the beginning, and everything in between. In equal parts a mystery and a testament to the profound connection between a child and parent, The Forgetting Time marks the debut of a major new talent. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Sharon Guskin is the author of the debut novel, The Forgetting Time published in 2016.
In addition to writing fiction, she has worked as a writer and producer of award-winning documentary films, including Stolen and On Meditation. She began exploring the ideas examined in The Forgetting Time when she worked at a refugee camp in Thailand as a young woman and, later, served as a hospice volunteer soon after the birth of her first child.
She’s been a fellow at Yaddo, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Blue Mountain Center, and Ragdale, and has degrees from Yale University and the Columbia University School of the Arts. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two sons. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Bold, captivating.... Guskin amps up the suspense while raising provocative questions about the maternal bond and its limits.... You'll be mesmerized.
People
For fans of Cloud Atlas and The Lovely Bones, this psychological mystery will have you hooked until the case is closed―or is it?
Cosmo
If you took to Lovely Bones, you'll be completely engrossed by Guskin's mystery, which meticulously weaves together a web of sympathetic, multi-dimensional characters through alternating chapters…Plenty of fodder for your next book club."
InStyle
(Starred review.) Readers will be galvanized by Guskin’s sharply realized and sympathetic characters with all their complications, contradictions, failures, sorrows, and hope. Deftly braiding together suspense, family drama, and keen insights into the workings of the brain, Guskin poses key and unsettling questions about love and memory, life and death, belief and fact.
Booklist
Even as crisis rocks unsettled four-year-old Noah and his single mother, Janie, once-promising academic Jerome Anderson receives a diagnosis that shuts down his future. Further revelation comes when all three meet a mother whose son has long been missing.
Library Journal
A single mom confronts the possibility that her troubled 4-year-old is the reincarnated spirit of a murdered child.... Guskin's debut novel tells a sentimental story with a murder mystery at its core, and it's interesting even if you don't go for the premise.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What is the significance of the novel’s title? What roles do forgetting and remembering play in the lives of Guskin’s characters?
2. How does the novel’s narrative structure illuminate its characters as the chapters move back and forth among perspectives? How does the tone in Janie’s, Denise’s, and Anderson’s chapters differ?
3. How did the case studies embedded within the novel affect your reading experience?
4. Most of Anderson’s cases are in Southeast Asia. Why do you think that is? How does the novel address the East-West cultural divide?
5. At the end of chapter 2, Anderson reflects: "Never expect. It had been the lesson of his life. "How has the unexpected shaped him? How has it shaped Janie and Denise?
6. Anderson gives up prestige and respectability to pursue his chosen path. Does he remind you of other literary heroes? How does he fit in with or complicate the archetypal American striver?
7. In chapter 9, Anderson tells Janie, "Luckily, I’m not in the belief business. I collect data." Do you believe him? How do the scientific and the personal collide in his work?
8. In chapter 20, Janie recalls a Sweet Honey in the Rock song: "Your children are not your children. . . though they are with you, they belong not to you." Discuss the resonances of that song for Janie and for Denise.
9. Discuss the significance of the Emily Dickinson poem that Janie quotes from in chapter 39:
Tell all the truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—
10. Do you agree with Janie’s ultimate decision to let Anderson use Noah’s case in his book? How do you feel about using children in psychological studies in general?
11. What does Denise mean when she thinks, "Why were we all hoarding love, stockpiling it?"
12. In what ways do Janie, Anderson, and Denise change by the end of the novel?
13. When Janie and Anderson decide to take Noah to Asheville Road, do you think they should have told Denise they were coming? If you were Denise, how would you have responded to them? Would you have given Paul the possibility of redemption and forgiveness?
14. When Anderson begins to pursue his cases, he is looking for "not just nature or nurture, but something else that could cause personality quirks, phobias. Why some babies were born calm and others inconsolable. Why some children had innate attractions and abilities." Why do you think children come out the way they do? Do you think his theories are plausible?
15. Discuss Anderson’s meditation on consciousness:
If consciousness survived death—and he had shown that it did—then how did this connect with what Max Planck and the quantum physicists realized: that events didn’t occur unless they were observed, and therefore that consciousness was fundamental, and matter itself was derived from it?
Did that therefore make this world like a dream, with each life, like each dream, flowing one after the other? And was it then possible that some of us—like these children—were awakened too abruptly from these dreams, and ached to return to them?
16. Have you had any experiences that changed your view of reality or what’s possible? Do you believe in life after death? How did your belief or disbelief affect your reading of this novel"?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
I'll See You in Paris
Michelle Gable, 2016
St. Martin's Press
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250070630
Summary
Three women, born generations apart.
One mysterious book that threads their lives together.
A journey of love, discovery, and truth…
I’ll See You in Paris is based on the real life of Gladys Spencer-Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough, a woman whose life was so rich and storied it could fill several books.
Nearly a century after Gladys’s heyday, a young woman’s quest to understand the legendary Duchess takes her from a charming hamlet in the English countryside, to a dilapidated manse kept behind barbed wire, and ultimately, to Paris, where answers will be found at last.
In the end, she not only solves the riddle of the Duchess but also uncovers the missing pieces in her own life.
At once a great love story and literary mystery, I’ll See You in Paris will entertain and delight, with an unexpected ending that will leave readers satisfied and eager for Gable’s next novel. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1974
• Born—San Diego, California, USA
• Education—B.A., College of William & Mary
• Currently—lives in Cardiff by the Sea, California
Michelle Gable is an American author, a wife, mother of two, and head of investor relations for a California software company. She writes whenever possible—starting at 5:00 in the morning or 11:00 at night.
Gable, born and raised in San Diego, California, became a budding writer early on. In the fourth grade, her parents presented her with the book Someday You'll Write: from then on she wrote short stories, horrible high school novels, and turned every tween and teen social gathering into a writing party.
Despite her passion for the written word, Gable earned a bachelor's in accounting and pursued a career in finance. But she never stopped writing. Bouyed by a literary agent who stuck with her despite low sales for two initial books, Gable finally attained success a few weeks shy of her 40th birthday—with the launch of A Paris Apartment. That book, published in 2014, reached both the New York Times and USA Today lists. Her second book I'll See You in Paris came out in 2016. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Gable has crafted another page-turner of a good read, filled with history, mystery and a dash of romance. This is the sort of fun, escapist read that is beloved by books clubs. There are characters to love, characters to hate, enticing settings and a requisite amount of plot twists.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Plot-master Gable’s affection for hidden treasures emerges again in her second absorbing novel. Readers are kept guessing ’til the end in this sweet story of love, mystery, art, literature, and Paris. As complex and moving as Naomi Wood’s Mrs. Hemingway and Liz Trenow’s The Forgotten Seamstress.
Booklist
Gable writes an engaging story, and both worlds—Annie's in 2001 and Pru's in 1973—are easy to slide into. Readers will root for both women as they uncover family secrets and discover hidden aspects of themselves. The riddle of the story is easily guessed, but that doesn't distract from the novel's overall charm. —Jennifer Mills, Shorewood-Troy Lib., IL
Library Journal
Gable tells an engaging story.... Blending fact and fiction in an entertaining but occasionally confusing way..., [some parts are] hard to believe, yet it's [a] fine tribute to a one-in-a-million [historical] character despite a few hard-to-swallow plot devices.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The Queen of the Night
Alexander Chee, 2016
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
576 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780544925472
Summary
Lilliet Berne is a sensation of the Paris Opera, a legendary soprano with every accolade except an original role, every singer’s chance at immortality.
When one is finally offered to her, she realizes with alarm that the libretto is based on a hidden piece of her past. Only four could have betrayed her: one is dead, one loves her, one wants to own her. And one, she hopes, never thinks of her at all.
As she mines her memories for clues, she recalls her life as an orphan who left the American frontier for Europe and was swept up into the glitzy, gritty world of Second Empire Paris. In order to survive, she transformed herself from hippodrome rider to courtesan, from empress’s maid to debut singer, all the while weaving a complicated web of romance, obligation, and political intrigue.
Featuring a cast of characters drawn from history, The Queen of the Night follows Lilliet as she moves ever closer to the truth behind the mysterious opera and the role that could secure her reputation—or destroy her with the secrets it reveals. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1967-68 (?)
• Where—South Kingstown, Rhode Island, USA
• Education—B.A., Wesleyan University
• Awards—Whiting Award
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Alexander Chee is an American fiction writer, poet, journalist and reviewer. Born in Rhode Island, he spent his childhood in South Korea, Kauai, Truk, Guam and Maine. He graduated from Wesleyan University and attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Chee is the author of the novels Edinburgh (2001) and The Queen of the Night (2016). He is a contributing editor at The New Republic, and an editor at large at VQR. His essays and stories have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Tin House, Slate, Guernica, NPR and Out, among others.
He is winner of a 2003 Whiting Award, a 2004 NEA Fellowship in prose, a 2010 MCCA Fellowship, and residency fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the VCCA, Civitella Ranieri and Amtrak.
He has taught writing at Wesleyan University, Amherst College, the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Texas– Austin. He was Picador Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig.
He lives in New York City, where he curates the Dear Reader series at Ace Hotel New York. (Adapted from the author's website and Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/14/2016.)
Book Reviews
Extravagant five-act grand opera of a novel...readers willing to submit to the spell of this glittering, luxuriantly paced novel will find that it rewards their attention, from its opening mysteries to its satisfying full-circle finale. Mr. Chee could be speaking of his own work when he exalts "the ridiculous and beloved thief that is opera—the singer who sneaks into the palace of your heart and somehow enters the stage singing aloud the secret hope or love or grief you hoped would always stay secret, disguised as melodrama." The highest compliment one can pay this book is that it is easy to imagine a version of it triumphing on the stage.
Wall Street Journal
Under the layers of plot and operatic melodrama, the constant scene changes and set pieces, Queen of the Night explores the question of what gives the courtesan her hold, her power over the hearts of men.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
This should be a stirring tale, and at times it is, but Chee doesn’t let us stay stirred for long. He is constantly throwing flashbacks and flash-forwards at us, so that we lose the thread of the plot. The story, anyway, is too packed with sensational events for us to keep them straight. Above all, Chee blocks our engagement by keeping Lilliet distant from us. For all her claims of experiencing intense emotion, we never feel that we know much about her inner life.
The New Yorker
The Queen of the Night is a 576-page historical novel [with a] plot that is operatically elaborate, enthralling, and occasionally far fetched—a bit like Verdi’s La Forza del Destino in its twists and turns. Chee has the great novelistic skill...of getting his character into sticky situations and letting her get out of them with her creativity and intelligence. Chee does an excellent job of making the world of 19th-century opera—an art form that continues to struggle with the perception that it is not fun—lively and fascinating and louche.
Slate
It’s the ball gowns, and roses, magic tricks and, ruses, hubris and punishment that will keep the reader absorbed until the final aria, waiting to see whom fate will curse and whom it will avenge.
Time
[L]ush and sweeping.... Though the momentum flags in the book’s lengthy central sections, Chee’s voice, at once dreamy and dramatic, never falters; Lilliet’s cycle of reinventions is a moving meditation on the transformative power of fate, art, time, and sheer survival.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) In a richly imagined work nonetheless grounded in fact, we follow Lilliet from one performance to another as she attempts to outrun a curse that she believes has been cast upon her.... Verdict: completely engrossing work that should appeal to the widest range of readers, especially those with a taste for historical fiction. —Edward B. Cone, New York
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Life as opera: the intrigues and passions of a star soprano in 19th-century Paris.... [T]he voice [Chee] has created for his female protagonist never falters.... Richly researched, ornately plotted, this story demands, and repays, close attention.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What is Lilliet’s belief in Fate? How does she see it ruling over her life? Do you think she is in control of her own actions? In what ways do you see her at the will of Fate and how does she make her own way in the world?
2. “Your Fach was your fate as a singer, as far as roles went, and so no wonder if we felt our fates came from our Fächer as well” (478). What does it mean to be a Falcon? How did it affect Lilliet’s fate? What is the Tenor’s Fach and how does it compare to Lilliet’s?
3. What is Lilliet’s real name? What are some of her many nicknames and why does she have so many?
4. What is Lilliet’s curse (or curses)? Do you think the curse is real?
5. “It was as if I had two voices now, the one strong and clear, the other turned to ash. As if the voice that could speak had been punished for the pride of the one that could sing. The gift and the test” (55). What is the significance of Lilliet’s different abilities to speak and to sing?
6. “There were only three people in Paris who knew of the rose’s time with me and the secrets I’d want to keep. It had taken me to each of them in turn, once I had accepted it from the Emperor’s hand. The first still loved me but had betrayed me, the second had once owned me. The third, I would say, never thought of me at all. Or, so I hoped...There was once a fourth, but he was dead” (76–77). Who are these four characters and what were their relationships to Lilliet? Was she correct in her evaluations of each of them at this point in the story? How does each of their stories evolve?
7. How is Lilliet the “Queen of the Night”? Why is the book called this?
8. Why does Lilliet allow herself to be registered when she is arrested with Euphrosyne? Why is this so surprising to everyone else? Think about how and if characters are acting according to gender norms of the day, and how they look to subvert them.
9. “She wanted only to be feared. I wanted to be feared and loved. I didn’t want everything she had as she stood on stage that night. I wanted more” (120). Look at the various role models Lilliet had— Euphrosyne, the Countess, Eugenie, Cora, her mother. What did Lilliet want for herself that these women didn’t have? How did she set out to achieve that?
10. Discuss the importance of clothing and appearance in the novel. What do Lilliet’s cancan shoes mean to her? How do men use the gift of clothing to their advantage? Look at the opening scene and how Lilliet’s change of clothing changes people’s perception of her. Other instances to examine might be the wardrobe of the Empress, the events at the costume ball, or other ways Lilliet must disguise and reinvent herself.
11. Who were Lilliet’s voice teachers and how did each shape her as a person?
12. For Lilliet, what does it mean to be free? Are there any female characters in this novel who are truly free? Discuss the idea of freedom, how it has evolved for women since the time of the setting of this novel, and what it means to you.
13. Look at the various relationships in the novel and discuss the characters’ motivations for entering into them. Which relationships are purely utilitarian? Who is using whom and how? Where do you see true love and true friendship?
14. Where does Lilliet come from and where does she go? What is her overall trajectory? What are her various professions, what does she learn from each of them, and how does she use them to get to where she wants to be? (And where does she want to be, ultimately?) Who does she love, who is her family?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)