Prima donna edition

Injured players get cortisone injections. They take paracetamol. They get treatment on the pitch. Footballers are often knocked on account of being, well, footballers. Now is their chance to give back. The child star of Wizards Of Waverly Place me neither was made to wear mascara, lipstick and foundation from the age of seven, which is wrong on so many levels.

I feel like that kind of messed with me. I have professionals doing my make-up and suddenly I can look 25 when I was 16, and it was crazy. Children must be allowed to enjoy childhood in all its innocent glory. At that age they should be scaling trees, not being sexualised. Paperback , pages. Published December 29th by Broadway Books first published January 1st More Details Original Title.

Other Editions 3. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Prima Donna , please sign up. Lists with This Book.

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list ». Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Prima Donna. Aug 12, Jennifer rated it really liked it. This is a story about journeys and self-discovery.

Sabine Conrad is running from a crime she committed. She is also running from herself and the person she has become. In Seattle she changes her name to Marguerite and tries to become a different person; tries to forget who she is.

But you can never change who you really are, especially Marguerite. In her past as Sabine, music and singing were everything to her. They were woven into every fiber of her being. Music was her soul. Every so often, the This is a story about journeys and self-discovery. Every so often, the chapters are entries from Sabine's journal, written during her early days as she tried to build her singing career.

Sabine traveled the country with her brother Barrett and her teacher Gideon. Sabine and Gideon fell in love during this time, and maintained a secret relationship. Both Sabine and Gideon did things they regretted, but most of it was to further Sabine's career. There were no innocent parties, just two people who loved each other, but yet never really communicated with each other. You know, say one thing but mean something else. Good things never come from this type of behavior. As the story unfolds Marguerite likes to think of herself as a victim, but she was just as responsible for her actions as Gideon was for encouraging her.

Both of them were at fault. A leopard can only hide her spots for so long, before they pop out again. So it was for Marguerite and music. She was a sad, empty, shell of a person without her singing. Marguerite tries to ease her pain on a daily basis until she befriends Charlotte. Charlotte starts to coax things out of Marguerite, and the walls she built begin to fall.

Marguerite begins to face certain truths, and the story moves forward from there. I don't want to give you any spoilers, but I will tell you that Marguerite eventually comes to terms with Sabine.

Her actions, her sense of being, who she is. At least now Sabine can now live her life on her own terms with no more secrets. With respect to s Seattle frontier, Chance's writing certainly brought that time and place to life for me. It was a rough and tumble place, and women did what they had to to survive.

Overall I enjoyed the story, however it did drag a bit in the 3rd quarter of the book. I was also a little tired of Sabine's journal entries because she was acting like a child, not growing up. She was a Prima Donna in the truest sense, whereas Marguerite was growing up and realizing herself, who she was. That probably also comes from what she had to do to survive. Towards the end, the story picks up the pace and ends quite well. Oct 07, Misfit rated it liked it Shelves: historical-fiction , one-time-read-only , get-it-from-the-library.

The story is told in alternating viewpoints, the later storyline in Seattle is first person narrative of Sabine and her past history as a young opera star is told via excerpts from Sabina's diary. Despite not being a great fan of opera, I actually had great hopes for this one, especially with the setting being my own home town - Seattle.

Unfortunately as some other reviewers have noted none of the characters were terribly likeable and in fact most times were downright distasteful as was much of the language they used as well as their sexual relationships does everyone like it rough and ready? I did enjoy the old Seattle setting and didn't really catch anything that sounded out of place and very much appreciated her including "The Mountain" in her settings Rainier does dominate the landscape just a tad when she deigns to show herself , but I think I would have enjoyed it more if there'd been some more interaction with the founding fathers, but outside of a very brief appearance at the end that is not to be.

In the end, it is a good book but not a great one. Get it from the library if you must and then buy it if you love it. Feb 15, Elizabeth Scott rated it it was amazing. I've read some of Megan Chance's other books I highly recommend An Inconvenient Wife, which has one of those endings that just leaves you gasping but this, I think, is her best yet. It's not for you if you don't like narrators who are--well, let's put it this way, you don't want to cross opera singer Sabine Conrad or, as she becomes, Marguerite Olson.

She's not a character you love--she's a character you are fascinated by, not just because of what she does, but because of how she has created s I've read some of Megan Chance's other books I highly recommend An Inconvenient Wife, which has one of those endings that just leaves you gasping but this, I think, is her best yet.

She's not a character you love--she's a character you are fascinated by, not just because of what she does, but because of how she has created so many layers around herself and what she's done that you finish the book wondering if the ending is sort of happy in a tragic way or just really tragic. That kind of writing take a lot of skill in my opinion, and Megan Chance pulls it off beautifully.

Moving back in forth from Sabine's early years as an opera singer in the s, to the moment where her life falls apart in the late s , to her life as Marguerite in Seattle in , you see what's happened--and, as the novel keeps going, start to wonder if Sabine, even when she was young, was as naive as she appears to be, or if she was determined to get what she wanted no matter what. And her life as Marguerite--she's hard and broken but still so And Sabine.

If you like historical fiction that doesn't flinch away from the darker side of human nature, do yourself a favor and check this one out. It is truly mesmerizing and I can't wait to see what Megan Chance does next! View 1 comment. Oct 07, Tara Chevrestt rated it liked it Shelves: arc , historical-fiction.

This story is told from two different view points. One viewpoint is twenty seven year old Sabine who is living in Seattle and working in a saloon hiring prostitutes and constantly looking over her shoulder in fear that her past will catch up with her.

The other viewpoint is seventeen year old Sabine's journal and it talks about the opera and her lovers and the all the scandal and family problems. The journal also slowly leads readers step by step towards understanding why and how Seattle Sabine This story is told from two different view points. The journal also slowly leads readers step by step towards understanding why and how Seattle Sabine is in the situation she is in.

I did not care for the journal of young Sabine. Thru her words readers visit the scandalous and heated backstages of s opera, but it is literally a soap opera about the opera. Watch a video of making Prima Donna. The opera tells the story of Emperor Hadrian devastated after his lover Antinous drowns in the Nile River.

While matters of state encroach on his grief, and advisors clamour for war against a radical new threat to the Empire, Hadrian slips out of time to re-encounter the vision and reality of Antinous—and learn the truth about what happened on the Nile. Return to Book Page. Preview — Prima Donna by Karen Swan.

Breaking the rules was what she liked best. That was her sport. Renegade, rebel, bad girl. Getting away with it. Pia Soto is the sexy and glamorous prima ballerina, the Brazilian bombshell who's shaking up the ballet world with her outrageous behaviour. She's wild and precocious, and she's a survivor. Having spent her life running from the darkness in her past, she's determ Breaking the rules was what she liked best.

Having spent her life running from the darkness in her past, she's determined that no man will ever control her destiny. But ruthless financier Will Silk has Pia in his sights, and has other ideas. Sophie O' Farrell is Pia's hapless, gawky assistant, the girl-next-door to Pia's prima donna, always falling in love with the wrong man or just falling over.

Sophie sets her own dreams aside to pick up the debris in Pia's wake, but she's no angel, and when a devastating accident threatens to cut short Pia's illustrious career, Sophie has to step out of the shadows and face up to the demons in her own life. Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. More Details Other Editions 8.

Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Prima Donna , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Prima Donna. Aug 04, Ashley Daviau rated it it was ok.

About 50 pages in, I realized the story sounded so familiar because I had already read this book before I started Goodreads and so I never wrote a review. The details are a bit vague and that's why it took me so long to realize it. But from what I do remember it wasn't interesting or good enough to merit slogging through it again. Jul 25, Honeypie rated it it was amazing Shelves: They always have everything I need and want in contemporary novels.

Pia Soto is the sexy and glamorous prima ballerina. Two heroines, each with their own stories and struggles. We all think of war and poverty as one the major things that give man heartache and they are, and they do. But we also forget that the mere calling of names, putting down people, lying and cheating!!

It was like being part of the story itself, experiencing everything the characters were feeling. Karen Swan is ruthless. On her characters. This is not a fairy tale, where the heroines are being maltreated because they are… the heroes of the book. I love this! I just wished it was more readily available here in the Philippines. I wish. View 1 comment.