An abysmal soap opera that contains lines such as "Yes, for this time we have together, I love him, I truly love him, and for as long as he desires me, I want to give him pleasure in every way". Cheap and annoying pornographic melodrama. Predictable plot (you can even foresee a specific castration) and one-dimensional characters (Tonio, the lead eunuch, seems to be ridiculously oh-so-perfect and everything happening to him or he does just happens to be ridiculously and laughably oh-so-perfect and he's wanted and admired by pretty much everyone and everything). Anne Rice's writing is so horribly eggregious and shamelessly syrupy corny that should make this book a must-read for all wannabe authors out there: as a cautionary tale of what NOT to do when writing a book. Rice can't make up her mind with this 18th century (historically accurate, from what I hear, but who cares, really?) mess of a book: she starts in earnest about castrati, gives us a taste of the opera world, and then she loses focus, betrays concepts and characters, and seems to be curiously fixated and obsessed with gay sex camouflaged under egregious lyricism and teen sentimentalism. There are some redeeming qualities in the book (18th century Italian opera, Venice and Rome, medical info on the castrati and their rigorous vocal training). Yet, even though I love opera and I'm all for historical novels bathed in explicit sex, I found myself bored and put off by Rice's clumsy shenanigans. It can be though a hilarious book to be excerpted from during parties for the sex scenes where Anne Rice manages to disguise hard core porn under words that belong in a romantic 18th century sonnet. For example, can anyone guess what "violent explosion" stands for, or what could a "brutal, unyielding thing" be, or the "inevitable summit" or the "weapon itself" or "seed flood..buttermilk sour and sweet"? And Anne Rice's favorite and omnipresent word? Throbbing.