Your familiarity with opera strikes me as a secret weapon. All the tropes! The twists! (and yes, the music). Makes great grist for the plotting mill. I really liked Cressida as a character, both in her sister-to-the-deceased persona--somebody who truly knew the victim from way back--and when she was in worldly demimondaine mode.
I think it's lost on a lot of American readers that prostitution in Regency London was legal. We think of that society as being obsessed with propriety and decorum, but in some ways they were ahead of us too.
Opera is great for inspiration (I also love to listen to it when I play). Though I probably get even more inspiration from Shakespeare plays. I think also often don't consider that, as Cressida says, a courtesan had more control her money and person and any children she had than a wife. A wife legally couldn't say no. As Cressida says, "A wife doesn't have the option of throwing her husband out and telling the servants to bolt the doors." Cressida and William both have quite a bit to do in the novella that follows The Seven Dials Affair. So glad you like her!
Wonderful background. Gives the story much more depth.
Thanks so much, Diane! It was fun to chronicle how Cressida and her story came together. I love that it combined my opera life and my mum life.
Your familiarity with opera strikes me as a secret weapon. All the tropes! The twists! (and yes, the music). Makes great grist for the plotting mill. I really liked Cressida as a character, both in her sister-to-the-deceased persona--somebody who truly knew the victim from way back--and when she was in worldly demimondaine mode.
I think it's lost on a lot of American readers that prostitution in Regency London was legal. We think of that society as being obsessed with propriety and decorum, but in some ways they were ahead of us too.
Opera is great for inspiration (I also love to listen to it when I play). Though I probably get even more inspiration from Shakespeare plays. I think also often don't consider that, as Cressida says, a courtesan had more control her money and person and any children she had than a wife. A wife legally couldn't say no. As Cressida says, "A wife doesn't have the option of throwing her husband out and telling the servants to bolt the doors." Cressida and William both have quite a bit to do in the novella that follows The Seven Dials Affair. So glad you like her!