++++ MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS +++ 
 Actual rating: 3,5 
 I cannot in good concience rate a novel this well researched and meticulously crafted any lower and yet, for all its accuracy and attention to detail, I did not love it. 
 Being an avid opera enthusiast as well as a lover of historical fiction, I went into this with high expectations. While the first few pages were promising-I loved the various opera references- it soon became rather tedious. The setting - Paris during the Belle Epoque - was captured to perfection and described vivdly, and yet I soon found myself dare-I-say-it, quite bored. 
 Our heroin, Liliert Berne, an opera diva with a mysterious past, could have been an intriguing character. Instead, I found her completely colorless. In fact, this was my main issue with this novel: The characters were flat, not fleshed out, neither likeable nor despicable. 
 While I do appreciate that this book is meant to be read as a take on operatic, Mozartean in particular, stereotypes and while I loved it that the nameless tenor exhibits all the qualities ususally found in the villainous baritones (my much beloved Baron Scarpia from Tosca came to mind several times), none of them possess any spark or life so that in the end I didn't care one whit about any of them. 
 The end was disappointing in how anticlimatic it was and the middle part felt at times like a chore to read, with its endless repetitions of similar situations befalling the heroine over and over. 
 However, one has to give credit to the amount of research that went into this. The author's knowledge and evident interest in this era and historical figures shines through every page and makes the book, if not particularly entertaining, at least fairly educational. 
 Overall, while it did not grip me, I recognize The Queen of the Night as a masterfully crafted novel possibly best suited to history buffs with an affinity for opera and female coture.