Re: The Phoenix of the Opera « Reply #1 on Aug 11, 2007, 9:21pm »
YES!!!!!!!!! And the sequel! I love both the books. It's about how Meg struggles to win the Phantoms heart, and the Phantom trying to let go of Christine and escape the police. It's wonderful!
Re: The Phoenix of the Opera « Reply #3 on Aug 16, 2007, 2:12pm »
Yah! I talk to the author all the time. She so sweet. Maybe I can get her here on the board and see if she'll answer any questions that any of us have? Her next book is due out in December she said.
Re: The Phoenix of the Opera « Reply #5 on Aug 21, 2007, 3:09pm »
Hi,
I'm the author of what I'm calling The Phoenix of the Opera series (based on the title of the first novel). Phantomluver4ever1 invited me to drop by. If you have any questions, let me know. Perhaps Phantomluver4ever1 can alert me when some come up?
I'm glad there's interest in my novels, The Phoenix of the Opera and Out of the Darkness. I've gotten some nice feedback at a few sites online. I'm always pleased to respond.
I'm working on the third one. That is to say, I'm going over it and deciding on revisions. I don't know when I'll publish it, but my plan is toward the end of the year so that it's out around the end of November or early December. I'm glad that there's interest. I do have to put Erik through his paces to keep the series going, poor dear! But he's strong! He'd have to be to survive what he survived.
Re: The Phoenix of the Opera « Reply #6 on Sept 2, 2007, 12:50pm »
Sadie,
Thank you for stopping by on the site. How about you explain why Erik/Meg just seems right, because there are those who are the strong Erik/Christine supporters? Thank you for your time!
Re: The Phoenix of the Opera « Reply #7 on Sept 6, 2007, 10:38pm »
Hi phantomluver4ever1,
I didn't want to create a completely new character, one who wouldn't necessarily know anything about what Erik had gone through. Too much explaining, too much lag time before the plot could move forward. So I thought about those characters available in the original story and the movie. Meg is such an obvious choice. For one thing, she is always spying on him. She is curious. She is a dancer, which offers a slightly different take on music but nonetheless for her music is a vital as it is for Erik. There is something very corporeal about Meg, too. I felt that Erik needed someone to reciprocate his passion on a physical level, so the dancing also works wonderfully as a metaphor for her sensuousness and tenderness. She is young, like Christine. I liked the resistance Erik might feel at first to her. She is Mme. Giry's daughter, so he might think of her as "hands-off" requiring Meg to be more resourceful and daring than she might otherwise be. I like the power of the Phantom, and I felt that he could occupy this position with Meg, too. As he did for Christine. He could train her for the opera, drawing out her other talents in addition to her dancing. So she is a perfect foil to Christine. It allowed for a kind of replaying of the original scenario of the tutor and pupil, but with a difference. In this case, Meg has been watching him just as he watched Christine. Meg knows about him and seeks him out. She knows his worst and his best aspects, which makes her desire for him so much deeper and more mature than Christine's might have been. She is a daring girl. She goes into the passageway behind the mirror to explore. She keeps the crowds back. She puts on pants and goes down to search for him. All of these seemed like advantages for my story and/or solid reasons to think that 1) Meg was always interested in the Phantom, perhaps even infatuated by him 2) curious and brave enough to pursue him once she saw that Christine had broken his heart and that he had decided to disappear and 3) that she would want to follow him.
I think embedded above are also the reasons that Erik/the Phantom would respond to her. Of course, it wouldn't be fast or easy. You've read my first novel so you know the battle waged for Erik's affection. One does not get over a broken heart in a matter of hours, days, weeks, or even a few months, not if the love is real. But Meg had the strength and the talent to persevere.
These are the major things that come to mind when I try to justify picking Meg as my heroine.
Oh, another couple of factors that played into my decision. I didn't want to change the story. I wanted Christine to be with Raoul. One thing that occurred to me is that Christine is so under the Phantom's spell that it would be hard for her to be her own person. In some ways, she is what the Phantom made her. Of course she rejects some of that when she goes to Raoul; she wants to be safe. But with the Phantom, she would always be this ideal, this object of obsession and love. Meg can be real. She is independent and over the course of the novels I've written she matures and becomes an even stronger individual, one who not only perseveres, but who fights for herself and for Erik.
Re: The Phoenix of the Opera « Reply #8 on Sept 6, 2007, 10:40pm »
Hi again,
I'm not sure whether I should start another thread for the second novel, Out of the Darkness: The Phantom's Journey. But I hope to bring it to readers' attention. It continues the story from The Phoenix of the Opera.
There are some nice reviews of both novels at Amazon.
![[Search This Thread]](http://s1.images.proboards.com/search2.gif)
![[Reply]](http://s1.images.proboards.com/buttons/reply.gif)
![[Send Topic To Friend]](http://s1.images.proboards.com/buttons/sendtopic.gif)
![[Print]](http://s1.images.proboards.com/buttons/print.gif)
Author
![[avatar]](http://www.woopics.com/uploads/cf43b40438.jpg)
![[Quote]](http://s1.images.proboards.com/buttons/quote.gif)
Logged
![[avatar]](http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n300/phantomluver4ever1/34.jpg)
If you have any questions, let me know. Perhaps Phantomluver4ever1 can alert me when some come up? 
![[image]](http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa187/sadiemontgomery/PhantomsOpera2.jpg)