Letters to Erik: The Ghost's Love Story by An Wallace
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Book Reviews of Letters to Erik: The Ghost's Love Story
Book Review: A gentle love story
Summary: 5 Stars
Of all of the Phantom fan-lit I have read this is the most touching and compassionate. There is none of the violence or sex found in some of the other titles. Ms. Wallace gives us sympathetic characters in a well-written, beautiful love story, which continues where the Leroux original ended.
***SPOILERS***
The story begins with a series of letters Christine is writing to Erik, who she believes is dead. As she finishes each letter, she locks it in the wooden jewelry box Erik made for her years before. Through these letters we learn, over a four-year period, about the disappointment she experiences in her life with Raoul and her growing realization that it is Erik she truly and deeply loves. Upon her return to Paris as a young widow with a small child, she begins her life over again. Working as a singing instructor, she also begins her own training in the hopes that she can once again find a life in opera. Deciding that she needs to move past her grief for Erik, she adds one more letter to the jewelry box and goes in search of the Persian and persuades him to lead her to Erik's grave. Once there, she places the jewelry box containing the letters where she has been lead to believe Erik's resting place is located and bids farewell to her past. What she does not know is that Erik is not dead. In fact he is concealed in the shadows, watching her. When she is gone, Erik reads the letters, and to his increasing amazement, learns of Christine's love for him and the grief she feels for coming to this understanding when too late. What follows is the tender, gentle story of these two lovers, reunited against all odds, and the happiness they finally find.
These characters both grow and mature during the course of the book. And although it is a love story, it is not overly gushy nor does it sugar-coat the personalities of the protagonists. While it does not vilifiy Erik to the extent that he is not sympathetic, it does acknowlege that Erik was not the most stable of men, with murder and death in his past. I was captivated by this book and read it in less than a day. It is a story that I will enjoy re-reading in future and I highly recommend it for romantics and Phantom fans alike.
Book Review: A Great Ending to the Original Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
First off, if you're a Susan Kay fan, this probably isn't the book for you. But if you always wanted a happy ending to Leroux's novel, then read "Letters to Erik." Picking up where Leroux left off, the novel follows Christine as she marries Raoul, then becomes a widow several years later and moves back to Paris with her son. And finds out she's not the only one back in town...
Now, I edit manuscripts as part of my job, so I have to admit that this book is not perfect, particularly from a technical perspective. It has the feel of a self-published novel--that is to say, it clearly suffered from the lack of an editor. For example, it could use more detail in setting up the scenes and there are redundant passages. There are also odd lapses in her research of the Victorian world. She makes use of obscure historical information (such as the theories regarding who the real "Erik" was and family genealogies), then makes obvious mistakes. For example, she states at one point that a character is in the advanced stages of consumption--but he gets over it. Apparently she doesn't realize that "consumption" was the colloquial name for tuberculosis, which was incurable up through the first part of the 20th century. The editor in me wants to critique the manuscript and send it back to An for a final revision, because this could easily go from being good to being great.
For all it's technical problems, it was a very good story. The letters are the best part of the book; I wish the author had stuck to the letter format for more of the novel. I couldn't put it down. The story isn't thrilling or fraught with conflict, but that's primarily because this book is meant to be the closing chapters of the original "The Phantom of the Opera," which is thrilling enough. And as a finish to the original, I thought An nicely captured the characters' personalities. Christine is an especially well-developed character. It's a pleasure to watch her develop from the naive girl into the mature woman. There are passages that made me laugh out loud and letters that made me cry. "Letters to Erik" resonated with me in a way Susan Kay and other versions never did. And the ending is a hoot!
Book Review: The Love Story With An Ending " Phans" Always Wished For!
Summary: 5 Stars
As an avid "Phan", and, especially after seeing Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman perform the Phantom of the Opera on stage in London some years back, I always wished that the Phantom's ending could have been portrayed differently. Perhaps I'm just a hopeless romantic but as I read this author's version of the Phantom of the Opera, I couldn't help but feel the depths of despair Erik must have felt throughout his lifetime as a result of both his horrific disfigurement as well as his unrequitted love for the beautiful Christine. This writing also provides the reader insight as to how Christine, given her immaturity and alluded to desire for the worldly riches and fame that would be hers as the wife of Raoul, could dismiss any and all romantic thoughts of Erik so easily those many years before. As an older and much wiser Christine now realizes, the love Eric had for her was truly a deep and abiding love fraught with self sacrifice on his behalf. She also realizes the depth of heart wrenching pain Erik must have endured by sending her away in order to ensure what he thought would be her happiness with Raoul, happiness he could not give her in his dark, underground world. In giving us Christine's letters to Erik, Ms. Wallace also provides the reader insight into Christine's thoughts and rememberances of Erik as well as a believable rationale for her heretofore reluctance to acknowledge her own hidden but abiding love for him. This is a superbly written book that finally gives us "Phans" a happy ending. It's at least a one box of tissue read.Book Review: A beautiful romance
Summary: 5 Stars
"Letters to Erik" picks up where Gaston Leroux's novel ends. Erik's death has been announced in the newspaper and Christine, having promised to return to the Opera House to see to his burial, encounters the Persian who informs her that Erik's body has already been taken care of. Broken-hearted, Christine leaves Paris for Sweden with Raoul in order to begin life there as his wife. She soon begins to miss Paris, the Opera House, and Erik. With no family or friends, surrounded by servants and married to an increasingly distant Raoul, Christine becomes more and more lonely and begins to regret choosing Raoul over Erik. She pours out her heart in letters to Erik. Christine's unhappy marriage over, she returns to Paris and the Opera House 5 years later, and here the love story begins.
The book includes many of the familiar characters from Leroux's work, the Persian, La Carlotta, La Sorelli, Madame Giry, who is a box-keeper, not the ballet mistress, Meg Giry, and many others. Erik's physical description is also in keeping with Leroux's character, a skeletal-like figure with distorted facial features and yellow/golden eyes.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, although I found the author's explanation of Erik's true origins and identity rather far-fetched. As for Raoul being portrayed as a "bad guy", it is as I suspected all along.
Book Review: A gem of a book about our favorite opera Ghost
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was absolutely wonderful. The idea is very original. Christine writes letters to Erik, to keep him alive in her mind, she confides to his "ghost" her thoughts on her marriage, relationships, loneliness, and most of all, about her sorrow over the loss of her great friend, mentor, and love, Erik. It is a coming of age story for Christine, one that was necessary. It is the story of Erik, working his way back into the world of the living with the help of Kaveh (the Daroga and Nadir in other stories) and his valet, Darius. Both Christine and Erik have come along way since Erik sent Christine away with Raoul. I have always loved the relationship between Erik and Kaveh and An Wallace does not hold back in her novel as she includes wonderfully funny dialogue between these two old friends as they antagonize each other with quips. I laughed out loud in sections. As the last reviewer stated, An Wallace gives us the story we really all wanted. She gives to us a very believable outcome to one of the most famous love stories every written.
wendy