The following post(s), written by a guest blogger, are open for you to participate with your comments. Spoiler Alert! These posts and discussions can include spoilers for the book's plot. We recommend that you finish reading the book before delving any further.
Posted by Barbara Peters on August 4th, 2014 · 113 comments
I had some opportunity while in Santa Fe pursuing opera this week to read some of the comments posted on The Beautiful Mystery, Part 1.
To address one, Louise has signed each year at The Poisoned Pen since arriving in 2009 with A Rule against Murder. On Labor Day, 2012, we webcast the discussion between Louise and me for The Beautiful Mystery. As it was part of her book tour it has no spoilers and you can watch it before reading on, or at any time. Watch here » . . .
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Posted by Barbara Peters on July 28th, 2014 · 134 comments
I asked to enter into a discussion of The Beautiful Mystery because reading the Acknowledgments and the Prologue hooked me before ever opening Chapter One.
I’m a lifelong operaphile, starting at age 13 when a friend took me to see Renata Tebaldi singing in La Traviata at Chicago’s Lyric Opera. Tebaldi was a robust woman, decked in a gorgeous dress featuring real camellias, so the idea that she grows increasing frail and dies of consumption reeked of miscasting—except that her voice was glorious, passionate, convincing, the music moving, so in the end I accepted Violetta’s fate. Music made me believe, music was the passport to Verdi’s story, into a world where its logic, if you can call it that, ruled.
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Barbara Peters holds a BA from Stanford University, MA from Northwestern University, MSLS from the University of Tennessee. After careers at the Library of Congress and in law, she moved to Arizona and founded 
