Queen of Hearts

This is a good page-turner. It is about Cesca, said to have fortune-telling abilities, who finds her fiance betraying her with another woman. She kills him, does not get caught, but lives with her guilt. She becomes a famous singer, her lyrics dealing with doomed lives and secret passions. There's prince Hal, her young brother who has cats slung over his shoulder as others wear capes. Hal has a glandular disturbance so he stays forever young. He goes off to become a lion trainer at a circus. There's Will Weaver, who the town views as a lovable eccentric but who is truly evil. There's Cesca's mother, Sophia, who is a sad mystery and a true melancholic. The book's strengths and weaknesses lie in its characterizations. Sometimes it's catching and wonderful. At other times there are deep gaps and shallowness. It is mystical, magical and lyrical and its themes are that of goodness, guilt and evil, all built around the lives of individuals and their connections to the past, present and future. The novel has elements of surrealism which fit in with the context very well.