I like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me a read.

Listen, I've been in the Phantom of the Opera fandom since the Y2k era. I lived through the 2004 film, Love Never Dies, and I thought I have seen everything. I'm telling you, this is the first time that a Phantom inspired (or stripped fanfiction) has left me bewildered and perplexed.

Lets start with the setting: this world is using the French language and terms, but is in some fantasy world. ... why? Just call in an alt. universe France. Not only that, there is horrible handling of the French language by someone who clearly does not speak French or bother with correct tenses. And so, this 'fantasy' world has magic. There is also a monarchy. But what does the monarchy do? It's unknown. They DO have mages... which then brings the story of Selene (Christine) and her 'father'.

Her father was once the mage to the King, but for some strange reason he went magic drunk and almost tried strangling her. Selene tries to protect herself and uses thunderbolt (it is effective) and kills her dad. She lives with this guilt. Meanwhile the monarchy is playing the part of FOX and having some weird American Idol tournament in some opera house where nobody performs opera...

Their magic is singing. But their magic is also dancing too? But Selene says often that singing is magic... so it's confusing.

Selene moves into the opera house and befriends the caretaker of the opera house 'magicians' (Madame Giry - or in this cause Madame Giroux... ) and her daughter, Gigi (Meg Giry). They know there is a 'ghost' in the opera house but the ghost isn't really present nor causes mischief.

The Raoul character is Victor (Vicomte De'Changy) and he is a pretty dumb prince who apparently has no other clothes to wear and wears his naval uniform a lot (because the author recalls a bit about Raoul in the original novel serving in the navy, and wears the Hussar costume in the stage show). He pretty much flirted with her and was with her when her father went psycho.

Our Erik character is some dude who doesn't remember who he is and lives in a mirror that is accessible by shedding blood on it. It is there our female lead decides to go after his strong dark powers so she can restore her father's legacy and clear his name. She doesn't do much of that, just continuously try on dresses of the most extravagant kind (even though Selene brings in no currency) and takes part in this weird American Idol competition which somehow triggers some need to strange people and cut their throats out. It's all really bizarre.

The romance is really bad, and at times you wonder why there is some weird debate on who she wants to be with because the author makes it very, very clear that she finds our Erik character hot and how badly she wants to press her body up to him (and make out with him) upon seeing him for the first time.

I admit the ending did take me by surprise, but it wasn't a good 'oh this makes the rest of the book make sense' surprise. No, it makes me wonder why mages exist when they really don't do anything or serve any sort of purpose in this badly drawn out monarchy.

There is also some really weird descriptions of how people talk, as I quote:
"His voice was pianissimo" and "dreams in treble cleff", like what the hell does this mean? how do you dream in 'treble cleff'? The author got tired of using normal descriptive phrases and decided since this was a book about 'music' she was going to relate musical terms to adjectives.
"He rolled the words around in his mouth like cherry stones?" why are 'red stones' or 'cherry stones' different than anything else round that could go in the mouth?

There is a point in which Selene gets hurt and our Victor removes his shirt ENTIRELY and reaches into a picnic basket brings out a jar of honey. He then tells her that it's good on wounds and dabs it on her skin (?!) followed by him ripping up the shirt and using it as bandages. Never-mind that they're in the opera house building and he can just go to the infirmary or ask Madame Giroux for some bandages or ointment. (He actually told her to get lost so he could do this... so it was just an excuse for the female to ogle his body.)

I honestly think this book is the Dance of the Starlit Sea of 2025. It has a sequel coming out and I am not going to be reading it.

3.5 stars rounded up.

Sing the Night has been an anticipated read for me probably for years since the author started posting about her journey writing and publishing.

There were a lot of things I really enjoyed about the story. I loved the opera house setting and the subtle nods to the Phantom lyrics. I also really enjoyed the use of musical terms to describe certain things in the story. I loved the competition aspect, giving the story a clear goal and timeline for our protagonist.

Selene’s blind ambition and lack of self preservation frustrated me, but it was clear that was the point of the story, and I enjoyed the ghost being a personification of Selene’s ambitions and desires. I was very compelled by her being caught between her ambitions and desire for a normal life, especially as her feelings for Victor grew.

That being said, I wish Dante had been developed a bit more. Selene’s obsession with him felt too instantaneous, and I wasn’t convinced by her need to be with him and see him. The chemistry between Selene and Dante was incomparable to the chemistry she and Victor seemed to have. I was much more compelled by Victor as his own character as well as Selene’s attraction to him than I was by Dante and his relationship with Selene. I felt like I needed more from him in terms of his struggle and backstory to feel sympathetic to him. It was clear to me that, consciously or not, he was using Selene, so I just wanted her to stay away from him, especially once I learned Madame had studied with him too!

I was also a bit confused by the magic system. I understood that people sang magic, and the magie du sang wants blood and painful memories, but I didn’t understand why magic was only used as entertainment. Becoming the king’s mage is supposed to be a great honor, but if you’re just a fancier version of a jester, why is that something people are willing to risk their sanity and the lives of others for? Was magic used differently before? Had anyone tried? Do you need an affinity for magic as well as a talent for singing? Or just one?

Lastly, I noticed a lot of repetition in the description of how Selene was feeling in certain scenes. There was a lot of “and perhaps it was this, or perhaps it was that, but…”

All of that being said, however, I very much enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to music/phantom lovers and lovers of romantasy. .