Review: The characters in this historical novel come alive
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 22, 2012
I downloaded this for free and was surprised at how good it was. It brought alive not only the world of late 18th Century Vienna, but what it's like to fall in love with a brilliant musical rake who uses his empathy and musical genius to seduce.This isn't a romance--there's no happy ending and the main "romance" in this story is one that has huge elements of sexual abuse involved, since it is a story of an illicit sexual relationship between a married older man and a teen who has been his student.The author did a very good job of bringing alive the state of mind of the young girl (the narrator) while giving the reader enough information to let draw her own conclusions about whether this was indeed the great love story the viewpoint character believes it to be. Given what we know about Mozart and the sexual ethos of the time, this is a very believable tale that is true to the period.Highly recommended for lovers of historical novels.