Tag: Phantom of the Opera

Pre-Order The Guardian of the Opera: Nocturne Today!

On By cherylmahoneyIn Novel News4 Comments

I am so pleased to announce that my next book Nocturne (The Guardian of the Opera, Book 1) is now available for Kindle pre-order.

Order your copy now

The book will release on June 5th, and will also be available in paperback and hardback.  I will, of course, be posting to remind you. 😉

Here’s a bit about the book, just in case you’ve missed all that rambling I’ve been doing about it for the last several years…!

Set against the backdrop of 1880s Paris and the stunning Opera Garnier, The Guardian of the Opera: Nocturne brings you the familiar tale from a different direction. Meg Giry met the Phantom once when she was twelve years old, a new ballet dancer lost in the Opera’s maze. Years later, when an Angel of Music offers singing lessons to her best friend Christine Daaé, Meg is sure she knows what’s actually happening. But as strange events unfold and the pieces stop adding up, Meg has to wonder if she truly understands the Phantom—or Christine.

Erik is a man of many talents and many masks, and the one covering his face may be the least concealing. The opera house is his kingdom and his refuge, where he stalks through the shadows as the Phantom of the Opera, watching over all that occurs. He never intended to fall in love; when he does, it launches him into a new symphony he’s certain can only end in heartbreak.

I can’t wait to share this story with all of you!

2020 Reading Challenges – First-Quarter Update

On By cherylmahoneyIn Phantom Challenge, Ruminations2 Comments

Already into April, it’s time to check-in about how 2020 reading goals are going!  I hope you are all enjoying nice weather, staying safe in a weird time, and reading as much as you’d like to.

My overarching goal this year was to read more, with a number goal of 125 books.  I read a lot in January, starting me off well for the year.  I’m at a total of 32 books for the first three months of the year, though it has been dropping off.  Now that I’ve been following “stay at home” orders for a few weeks, my audiobook listening has reduced (very little driving!) and I don’t seem to be doing a lot of extra print reading…but I’m still going through some books, and wondering how long my last-minute stock-up pile from the library will last!

Here’s my monthly totals:
January: 14 books
February: 11 books
March: 7 books

Now onto the specific challenges…

The Phantom of the Opera Reading & Viewing Challenge
Host: Tales of the Marvelous
Goal: Lon Chaney Level

I already posted the check-in post for the Phantom challenge I’m hosting.  So far, I’ve reread the Gaston Leroux Phantom.  I have a modest goal for this one, so I’m currently on track.  I’m hoping to re-watch the 25th Anniversary Webber play next.  We’ll see!

Continue reading “2020 Reading Challenges – First-Quarter Update” →

The Phantom of the Opera Reading and Viewing Challenge – 1st Update

On By cherylmahoneyIn Phantom Challenge2 Comments

It’s April 1st, a quarter of the way through 2020 already, and that means it’s time for an update on Phantom reading and viewing adventures.  I hope you and yours are staying well in the midst of the pandemic situation, and maybe having time for some extra reading.  And remember – social isolation may be hard, but donning a mask and crashing chandeliers is never the answer!

I kicked off my Phantom exploration for the year with a reread of the original story, Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera.  This was my…third? fourth? time reading the book, and I enjoyed it immensely–and had lots of thoughts about the unreliability of the narration.

Read my written review of Leroux’s Phantom.

Watch my video review of Leroux’s Phantom.

If you’d like a refresher on the challenge, check out the launch post here.  And please share about your Phantom adventures so far in 2020 in a comment below.  I look forward to seeing what you’ve been exploring this year.

Shameless self-promotion: As a further update on my own retelling of the Phantom, The Guardian of the Opera: Nocturne will be out June 5th, and the cover reveal is this Friday, April 3rd.  Drop by Friday and see the awesome cover I can’t wait to share!

Writing Wednesday: Knitting Threads Together

On By cherylmahoneyIn Writing1 Comment

I’ve been making good progress in the past week on my writing goals.  I mentioned the two short stories I’m writing to contribute to an upcoming anthology.  Happily, I’ve been able to finish both of them in the last few days.

One is about a woman venturing (magically) into The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, and I needed to write a mid-section where she finally manages to meet the Phantom.  That started slow, then took off with a burst of inspiration to finish in a couple of days.  It was very satisfying too, because my character surprised me.  I always thought that when she finally met Leroux’s Phantom she would be afraid of him; instead, she ended up being angry!  I thoroughly enjoyed that.

My second story involves a boy venturing into Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, and I also had a mid-section missing here, trying to add in a kind of sub-story of an adventure in Neverland.  But it just wasn’t working and wasn’t working and I finally realized I was better off cutting the whole thing and just sticking to the main arc of the story.  So when I finally accepted that, all I had to do was tweak a few bits to knit either end of it together without the story in between.  Not what I planned, but much simpler!

Right now I’m doing some light editing on both stories, and I’m not sure exactly what I’ll do next.  I might write a couple more short stories (with a different premise!) and then turn back to revision in April, this time for The Princess Beyond the Thorns.

Here’s a bit I added into the Phantom short story, to work with my new title: “Ghosts on the Page.”

*******

So what was my next step going to be?  And just how long did I think I had?

I wandered through the Opera’s halls as I considered that troubling question.  It was so easy to get lost in the world of the book, but I had to remember this wasn’t my life.  This was just a story, and all these people I was meeting, Christine, Henri, the ballet girls, were only characters.  Ghosts, in a way, but even less real than that; they’d never actually lived.  I had to keep that in mind, and remember my real life was much more important.

Book Review: The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Phantom Challenge, Reviews1 Comment

As part of the Phantom Reading & Viewing Challenge I’m hosting this year (you can still join us!) in February I reread the story that began it all, Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera.  I’ve read it at least twice (probably three times?) before, but it’s been a few years since my last read.  The first time I was entirely new to the story, and hadn’t seen or read any other version.  The second and possible third times, I was comparing to numerous other versions and also looking for ideas for my own version of the story.  This time, I found myself fascinated by how uncertain an account it really is – more than most books, Leroux’s Phantom has the potential to be completely altered depending on how much we trust the narrators, and I wonder how this influenced all those later versions.

On the surface, the story is essentially as it is in later versions, although Leroux’s focus is a little different than most, putting much more of the spotlight on Raoul.  From this angle, it becomes a story of the young nobleman trying to unravel the mystery of what’s going on with Christine Daaé, opera singer and love interest.  Raoul eventually finds himself contending with Erik, a skeletal, masked man who lives below the Opera Garnier, posing as a ghost.  Raoul’s story is intercut with the almost unrelated account of the Opera’s managers as they try to cope with the pranks and extortion of the Opera Ghost.

Most later versions shift the focus to be less on Raoul and much more on Christine and the Phantom.  And personally, I find the Phantom a far more interesting character than Raoul, so that seems like a good choice!  But in Leroux, the different focus changes how we learn some key portions of the story and, with some other narrative choices, opens up room for doubt.

Continue reading “Book Review: The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux” →