Megan Chance Book Tour Review

Megan Chance 1-5-10 Third Place Books

I have a soft spot in my heart for author Megan Chance from the moment I walked by a writers conference meeting room and overheard her say something memorable. There she sat on a panel for Romance writers and yelled at the audience, "For God's sake people be professional."

Now that is a woman who knows how to get a message across. I had to sit in on the discussion being one of three men who engulfed her knowledge and spirit.

I decided to include this post after reviewing notes I took six months ago.

If you see her at an author reading, Chance is as comfortable in front of a audience as she is behind the computer. This is no surprise since she once fronted a band as the lead singer in her youth. It's also not hard to imagine her twenty five years ago belting out Pretender's songs to a bunch of mullet headed boys dancing with girls sporting big hair, giant hooped earrings and over sized belts. (My God we need to get Miami Vice back on the air.)

The clarity of Chance's voice and the ability to project her ideas across the room make the microphone obsolete and her ability to tell a story moved the hour along quickly despite the subject of her book "Prima Donna."

After listenting to her reading I only had one thought "Who the hell thought 19Th century opera could be so compelling?"

Historical Romance is not my thing but the post Reconstruction era in the U.S. presents some rich opportunity for an author to tell the story of America. Being an expert in that era, Chance wanted to write of the most famous woman in the U.S. who must go into hiding after committing murder. Think what Madonna would do if she commited murder.


In the 19th century, Chance explains the most famous of women were the opera singers leading the author to recount her journey into learning opera especially the 19th century singers known as Prima Donna's.

Chance's reading this evening made the world of opera and 1880 Seattle as dangerous as any world James Cameron could create and in that sense, the author may have done the impossible by writing a suspence/romance about opera, that could even appeal to men. Now if she could just work in a helicopter gunship...