Publication January 23, 2024-St. Martin’s Press-Historical Fiction-336 pp.
Book Summary
New York Times bestselling author Daisy Goodwin returns with a story of the scandalous love affair between the most celebrated opera singer of all time and one of the richest men in the world.
In the glittering and ruthlessly competitive world of opera, Maria Callas was known simply as la divina: the divine one. With her glorious voice, instinctive flair for the dramatic and striking beauty, she was the toast of the grandest opera houses in the world. But her fame was hard won: raised in Nazi-occupied Greece by a mother who mercilessly exploited her golden voice, she learned early in life to protect herself from those who would use her for their own ends.
When she met the fabulously rich Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, for the first time in her life, she believed she’d found someone who saw the woman within the legendary soprano. She fell desperately in love. He introduced her to a life of unbelievable luxury, showering her with jewels and sojourns in the most fashionable international watering holes with celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
And then suddenly, it was over. The international press announced that Aristotle Onassis would marry the most famous woman in the world, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, leaving Maria to pick up the pieces.
Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab
The curtain rises in 1940’s Athens, the house spotlight on awkward 16-year-old Maria Callas. Daisy Goodwin introduces Maria’s main influencers through flashbacks to her childhood and how she felt exploited and unloved. Maria’s future successes and travels around the world are woven into her life story through memories and perspectives of Elvira de Hidalgo, her singing teacher, Franco Zeffirelli, her director and close friend, and the veteran of society, Elsa Maxwell. It was Elsa’s orchestrations that brought the two famous Greeks, Aristotle Onassis, and Maria Callas, together, as they bonded over troubled childhoods. Readers are gently introduced to Greek terms and operas like Carmen, Tosca, and Traviata through the “queen of opera’s” voice challenges and points of view of singer and director.
From the October 1968, Onassis/Kennedy wedding, across continents, islands and opera houses, this novel is filled with movie stars, royalty, famous political figures, and the performance details of JFK’s iconic 45th birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden.
Maria sometimes doubted the support of her family, her husband, and Ari, her lover, but she never doubted her own talent. Was she manipulated? Does Maria end up like the characters she portrays, dying for love in the third act or does she find her own ending?
Daisy Goodwin’s Diva, presented in operatic performance format, will have readers anticipating the encore and counting the curtain calls- Bravo!
Daisy Goodwin is a writer and television producer. In 2005 she started Silver River productions, which she sold to Sony in 2012. Alongside her tv work , Daisy has written a memoir, Silver River and two novels My Last Duchess Uk/The American Heiress US and The Fortune Hunter, which were both New York Times bestsellers. In 2014 Daisy decided to concentrate on writing full time and was commissioned to write her first screenplay, Victoria, an 8 part series about the early life of Queen Victoria for ITV and WGBH Masterpiece Theatre. She is now working on Season 2. Daisy lives in London with her three dogs, two daughters and one husband.
The Grateful Reader 
Goodwin is known for her romance books, so I’m not sure I want to read a biographical fiction novel about one of opera’s most famous sopranos by her. Gill Paul totally screwed up her book about Callas and Jackie (making them both out to be shy, retiring idiots who feel sorry for themselves), and I’m still feeling burnt by that one.
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