After reading “Liszt’s Kiss,” I went to the public library and found Dunlap’s previous and first novel. This one was also set in France during the reign of Louis XIV whose queen was the Austrian Maria Theresa. Again the novel focused on music and singing — not a surprise given than Dunlap has a Ph.D. in music history from Yale. The female protagonist of this first novel, Emilie, resembles the girl in the second novel — musically talented, innocent, manipulated and influenced. Dunlap has some exquisite descriptions of Emilie’s voice — she describes it as “opening like a flower” in the middle range and being clear in the top range. That simile “opening like a flower” is particularly resonate and evocative. The two composers that figure in this novel are Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marc-Antoine Charpentier. After reading this novel, I want to listen to works by both men: Lully’s “Alceste” and “Psyche” and Charpentier’s sacred music.

But before I read Dunlap’s novel, I read a novel called “Medicus” by Ruth Downie. This novel set in Britannia during the reign of Hadrian was really entertaining. The main character is a doctor named Ruso who has a penchant for damsels in distress — dead and alive. Both he and the narrator have a rather droll sense of humor, often rendered by wry understatement and ironic juxtaposition. It is a pity that this is Downie’s first novel, because I would otherwise have to run to the library to check out her other novels. The novel was published in 2006, so I can expect to wait at least another year for the second novel to appear to learn what happens to Ruso and Tilla next.