The Queen Of The Night by Alexander Chee

 

Lilliet Berne is born in the prairies of the United States.  When disease killed off all her family, she gets on a train and starts traveling. She ends up in Paris where she joins a circus as a gymnast on a horse, singing to entertain.  The crowds loved her. Soon, however, she ends up working as a prostitute to make ends meet.  There she meets a patron who becomes besotted with her, the tenor.  When he hears her sing he arranges for her to audition for the finest opera school but she is turned down.

Fleeing the tenor, she leaves again.  She ends up with a former opera singer who runs a school in Austria but soon the tenor shows up again.  Lilliet ends up working for the Empress as her wardrobe mistress and falls in love with a young composer.  But their love is not to be and soon she is back in Paris.  This time she is accepted at the opera school and soon she is the toast of the town.  

But one achievement escapes her.  The best divas have operas written exclusively for her.  When she is offered a script, she realizes that the new opera is the story of her life so far.  Who knows all her secrets?  As she attempts to find out, she ricochets between the man who is obsessed with her and the one she is obsessed with.  Will she find a happy life?

This novel gained great praise with honors like an NPR Best Book, an Indie Next Pick and a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice.  Readers may pick up suggestions of Charles Dickens with an intricate plot and tons of characters with full backstories and will learn about topics such as the opera, the brothels of Paris, the French revolution and the Franco-Prussian war.  Throughout, Lillibet is an enterprising woman who does whatever it takes to make her way in a man's world.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.