Published June 2010

About the Book

Mozart’s Blood is historical fiction based on a real-life character, the opera singer Teresa Saporiti, who created the role of Donna Anna in Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni.  The story spans four centuries and takes place in half a dozen great opera houses.  It’s all about an abiding passion for music which even time and death cannot extinguish.

The cover art is by Jon Paul, and the jacket design is by Kristine Mills-Noble.

Reviews

From Booklist:
Marley, a musician and writer, has produced a stunning drama inspired by the life of Teresa Saporiti, the first Donna Anna. Teresa, an aspiring singer, was turned into a vampire by a Czech aristocrat. As bad as the need for blood are the memories of the victims, which remain with the taker. Teresa has learned to deal with them, but Mozart, whom the baroness bit at the same time, never did and died painfully because he could not bring himself to satisfy the unnatural thirst. In San Francisco in 1906, Teresa meets Ugo, a Silician werewolf with a very curious past of his own. They become partners, guarding each other’s backs. In twenty-first-century Milan, an egoistic baritone thinks he has figured out Teresa’s secret and abducts Ugo to obtain the blood that holds Mozart’s memories. The story covers four centuries, but the shifts between the past and the present are seamlessly handled, and the development of Teresa and Ugo over those centuries is impressive. An engrossing piece, from overture to final chord.

From indie bookseller Jeannie Mancini:

This novel is no chic-lit paranormal romance. This is serious vampire literature and one of the best I’ve come across in years. Marley’s writing is outstanding and very polished. The story bursts with breathtaking passionate scenes of emotional torment, the operatic voices vibrate off the page, her characters are crafted with depth and humanity, and the plot is very inventive. This is a story with soul, one that is a cut above all the rest of the vampire fiction out there now that is being mass produced like paper dolls. Dripping with 18th century history, Mozart’s Blood is a sensational read not to be missed for any fans of vampire novels and I personally am hoping for a sequel. Bravo! I stand up and applaud!!!!

—Frieda Murray

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Virtual Tour

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Discussion Questions

1. Ugo and Octavia have a deep bond that has lasted for more than a century. What do you think drew them together and has kept them close all those years? What is the greatest difference between them?

2. What is it about Teresa’s character that made her strong enough to withstand the demands of her nature after the bite of Zdenka Milosch? Why was Mozart not able to do the same?

3. Why did Teresa, in the end, decide not to share the tooth with Vincenzo dal Prato, the castrato who befriended her when she was a young girl in Milan?

4. The opera Don Giovanni, which is the framing device for the novel, is both drama and comedy, romance and tragedy. Do you find these elements in Ugo’s and Teresa’s stories? In Mozart’s?

5. Can the attraction between Massimo and Octavia survive what happened between them?

6. Massimo wants a great singing career just as much as Teresa did. Do you think he has the same strength?

7. Who do you think will take over the leadership of La Società after the Countess?

8. Ughetto was sensitive and affectionate as a young boy at the scuola. How is Ugo different now, and why did he change?

9. Vampire stories have been popular since Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published in 1897, and they have experienced a resurgence in recent years. Do you think the appeal of vampires is about sex? Power? Long life? Or is it something indefinable?

10. The elders are so ancient that nothing gives them joy any more except music. What is the appeal of music that it can outlast every other pleasure?

Download Discussion Questions for Mozart’s Blood (RTF document)

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Book Club Party Guide

Along with the list of ten suggested discussion questions, here are a few ideas for turning your discussion of Mozart’s Blood into a party:

If it’s appropriate, have an open bottle of Riesling in an ice bucket, in honor of Herr Mozart’s Viennese background. Teresa would love it if you offered a bottle of Italian red wine. Her favorite would be a Barolo, of course, but those can be expensive. A nice chianti is just fine, or a rich Brunello. For those who don’t drink wine, bottles of Pellegrino can be open and ready on the table.

For a lunch or dinner party, a good pasta dish simply made with fresh ingredients will be perfect. Use fresh diced tomatoes, a third of a cup of good green olive oil, lots of chopped basil, a cup of pine nuts and a half cup of shaved parmesan cheese. Boil a pound of pasta and toss with all the other ingredients. It should serve six to eight.

With it serve a salad such as Ugo might have recognized. Layer peeled and sectioned grapefruit with avocado slices onto salad plates, and drizzle with garlic-infused olive oil. The grapefruit sections that come in glass jars are fine, but drain them well. Garnish with even more fresh basil leaves (you can never have too much).

A loaf of fresh Italian bread served with olive oil for dipping rounds out your table!

Dessert is simplest of all. If your club doesn’t serve a full meal, this will energize them for the discussion! Arrange an assortment of dark chocolate truffles on an elegant plate, and serve with a good Viennese coffee. Side dishes can be nuts and cheese and olives. Shop for Mediterranean-themed cocktail napkins!

Most of the pictures you see here, such as this one of Teresa’s birthplace, are free for download from the internet. Download and print in a good size, and use them to decorate. You can paste them to cardboard or even put them in inexpensive picture frames.

And now the best part: the music! Begin with a good recording of Don Giovanni, preferably featuring Renee Fleming. Any of the symphonies would be lovely, particularly the familiar ones such as Symphony #40 in G minor, or the Symphony #25. The score for the movie Amadeus would be perfect, as it offers tidbits of all the familiar passages.

Halloween is the perfect time to read a book like Mozart’s Blood, and you could have your guests come in costume! It might be hard to achieve Octavia’s beautiful gown here, but you have so many periods to choose from—the 18th century, the late 19th century, the Roaring Twenties, even the clothes of World War II. Costumes are fun to research. Googling the period you want to use is easy.

If you do dress in period costumes, take good pictures! We would love to put them on the website. Salute! E buon gusto!

Download Book Club Party Guide (Word document)

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Background and Other Notes of Interest

The magnificent singing actress Renee Fleming provided a model and a list of repertoire for my character.   Ms. Fleming, with whom I once had the great pleasure of working, is a magnificent Donna Anna.    Take a few moments to listen and watch:  \”Non mi dir\” from Don Giovanni, sung by Renee Fleming

This historical novel covers the musical periods of the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Classical, and the Romantic.  The very early scenes take place in Rome, where a brand new art form called “musical drama” was just being introduced.  For quick details on the birth of opera, visit John Howell’s very brief summary of opera history.

This is Mozart as Teresa Saporiti would have known him.  The most passionate Mozart devotees still mourn his untimely death, and long to hear the music he would have written.  The Requiem, which he was working on at the time of his passing, was completed by a student of his, Sussmeyer.  The contrast between the music of Mozart and the music of Sussmeyer is a painful reminder of what the world lost when it lost Mozart.  Listen to a bit of the sublime Requiem.

Bibliography

In addition to touring the Metropolitan Opera House and the historic La Scala Theater in Milan, the following resources were immensely valuable–and a whole lot of fun:

Mozart, a Biography, by Piero Melograni

Marrying Mozart, a delightful novel by Stephanie Cowell

The Inner Voice, by Renee Fleming

The Costume Exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

The listserve MozartForum and its helpful scholars

Disaster by the Bay, H. Paul Jeffers

The Great San Francisco Earthquake & Fire, Helen Hillyer Brown

Great Singers on Great Singing, Jerome Hines

Links

An unusual vintage video of San Francisco, 2006

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Excerpt

Mozart’s Blood

Quel sangue . . . quella piaga . . .

The blood . . . that wound . . .

Donna Anna, Act One, Scene One, Don Giovanni

The old woman hummed to herself as she crumbled bits of black paste into a little clay pot and added wine and water.  “Good Roman wine,” she said, as she stirred it with a wooden spoon.  “And honey,” she added, smiling, showing blackened teeth.  “To cover the taste.”

She had told Ughetto and the other boys to call her Nonna.  But she was nothing like Ughetto’s nonna.  Ughetto’s nonna was plump and easy, with soft arms and warm fingers.  This crone, this vecchia,  was scrawny and dry and twisted, like a dead olive tree.

Ughetto knew what the black paste was.  He had seen it often in his mother’s tavern in Trapani.  The sailors carried it in their pockets, wrapped in bits of Chinese silk or Indian cotton.  Their eyes gleamed with anticipation as they unwrapped their little bundles, opening them carefully on the wooden tables.  They shaved the paste into clay pipes with small, sharp knives, and when they smoked it, the tavern filled with the pungent scent of poppies.

Ughetto’s mother always drove him out then, him and all six of his sisters.  She shooed them down to the beach to search for mussels, or over to the docks to drum up trade for the tavern.  They went running down the twisting streets, laughing, shouting, a horde of ragged girls with Ughetto, the baby, the only boy, struggling to keep up.

He wished his real nonna were here now, or his mamma.  He wished his sisters were here, or he with them, though they ordered him about like a small slave.  Home had been noisy and warm.  Home had felt safe, most of the time.  He didn’t like being alone, didn’t like this place, this Nonna, or Luigi, her slack-lipped son.

They had taken him in Trapani.  Mamma had sent him to the docks, telling him to wait beside the pile of empty crab pots for a woman with a package.  This Nonna had appeared, with her big-shouldered, big-bellied son.  Nonna asked Ughetto’s name, and when he gave it, Luigi picked him up and carried him onto a waiting boat.

Ughetto was the package, it turned out, and though he wailed for his sisters, there was no one to save him.

Now, in this fearsome little casetta, Ughetto wrapped his arms around himself and shivered with fear.  Luigi had already carried two other boys, eyes glazed from the opium, legs flopping limply over his big arms, into the tiled room where the tub was, where the knives waited.  Ughetto crouched in the atrium under Nonna’s watchful eye, listening to the whimpers and moans as the deed was done.  Luigi brought the boys back, swaddled in bloody linen, and carried them through the atrium and on into the tiny house.

Ughetto tried to turn his head away when Nonna held the cup to his lips, but she seized his hair with her brown claw, and twisted his head to face her.  “Cretino,” she hissed.  “Don’t be an idiot.  Drink, or you’ll be screaming.”

He cried, “No!  Mamma, Mamma.”  Hot baby tears burned his eyes.

Nonna showed her jumbled teeth.  “No more mamma, little one.   Musica.”

She pressed the cup against his mouth, forcing his lips open with its metal rim.  The sweet strong wine flooded his tongue, and he had to swallow, or drown.  He closed his eyes, and gulped pungent sweetness.  The room began to dissolve around him.  He spun, stomach and brain and feet all mixed up, like diving too deep from the rocks into the warm Mediterranean waters of Trapani and not knowing which way to swim to the surface.

Nonna tipped up the cup again, and he drank, drank until it was dry.

She spoke.  Ughetto heard her voice, but her words made no sense.  He tried to open his eyes, but the lids would not obey him.

Perhaps he would die.  Boys did, hundreds of them.  Everyone knew that.  They died under the knife, or they died afterward, bleeding and swollen, burning with fever.  Would his mamma know if he died?  Would they tell her?

Would she care?

It was possible she would not.  She had regarded him so strangely, ever since that night when the family–all six girls, Ughetto, his nonna, and Mamma–had gone down to the docks in the darkness to wait for the squid boats to come in.  Far out on the water, the fisherman shone their torches over the water to entice the squid to the jigs.  The lights danced on the waves, shifting as the water tossed the boats to and fro.

When the moon rose over the sea, Ughetto’s sisters exclaimed at its brilliance.  They turned, all of them, and lifted their faces into its silver glow.  It was full and round, and its crystalline light turned the low roofs and rough-cobbled streets of Trapani into a scene of magic, a fantasy village, its dirt and poverty transformed by the moon.

Ughetto was seven years old, already wriggling with energy and pleasure at the novelty of the night.  When a strange sensation came over him, standing there in the moonlight, it seemed part of the strangeness.  He felt as if he were becoming someone else, someone new and powerful instead of small and insignificant.  His skin itched, and his jaw ached.  When he began to scratch at himself, his mamma slapped at his hands.  He tried to hold still, but he felt as if he were burning, as if he had rolled in too-hot sand.  He scrubbed at his belly with both hands, grunting at the fierceness of the sensation.

It was his nonna who seized him up then, lifting him in her arms as if he were still a baby.  She hissed something at his mamma, who drew a sharp, shocked breath.  His nonna carried him away, up through the moonlit streets to the tavern, leaving his mamma and his sisters on the docks.  He remembered kicking at her, whining, but she only held him tighter, and made no answer.  She bundled him into the tavern, and into his bed, folding him into his blankets, ignoring his protests.  She lit no candles, nor did she stoke up the fire, but held him there in the darkness.  In time, the burning of his skin subsided.  By the time his mamma and sisters came home with their buckets of squid, he felt himself again.  But Mamma looked at him as if he were a stranger.

And now she was lost to him.  It was Luigi’s strong arms beneath him, Luigi’s rough hand seizing his head as it lolled backward.  There was movement, the air changing against his face as Luigi carried him.  The smell of the bath filled his nostrils with the essence of vinegar.  Water rose around his legs, warm as blood.  His buttocks settled onto a wooden bench that was wet and hard and splintery.  Hands took hold of his feet and pulled his legs apart.

Someone held his head, murmuring something, laughing.

Someone else wielded the knife.

There was pain, sharp and surprising, and he gasped, breathing water, choking.  He struggled, and someone cursed.  There was a splash, and more swearing, and then someone . . . Ughetto fought his eyelids, trying to see.

Someone was growling.

His eyelids lifted, and his mind cleared all at once, as if a fog had burned away under a quickly rising sun.  He peered around him through slitted eyes.

Faces looked back at him, horrified faces.  Nonna shrieked something, and an open-mouthed stranger, the surgeon, backed away, knife held out before him, dripping blood onto the tiled floor.  Luigi gave a guttural cry and dropped Ughetto’s head into the water.

Ughetto blew water from his mouth as he grasped the edge of the tub with both hands.  He pulled himself to his feet, dripping, hot, and angry.

There was blood on his thighs, warmer than the water.  His head hummed with sounds and smells he had not noticed before, the wheeze of Nonna’s breath in her aging lungs, the fetid odor of Luigi’s sweat, the scent of blood on the surgeon’s knife, on his clothes, his hands.  The surgeon whimpered, and backed away.

Ughetto splashed out of the tub.  Nonna tried to seize him, and he struck at her with his nails, slicing her dark skin, drawing blood.  She dropped him with a cry, and he whirled to slash at Luigi next.  Luigi scrambled out of reach.  The smell of his fear filled the room, and made Ughetto’s mouth fill with saliva.  Ughetto rounded on the surgeon next, but he saw only his heels as the man fled the room.

Ughetto fell to all fours in a movement that felt perfectly natural.  He spun in a circle, and saw that Luigi and Nonna dared not come close to him.  His mouth opened, and his tongue lolled, saliva dripping as he galloped from the room.  He slid on the wet tiles, finding his footing once he reached the dirt floor of the atrium.  The sun warmed his back as he dashed away from the house.  He ran swiftly, strongly, too fast for them to follow.  They had no will to chase him, in any case.  The pungence of their fear assured him of that.

He raced toward the orange grove, eager for the sanctuary of its drooping branches.

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Book One: The Horsemistress Saga

About the Book

Airs Beneath the Moon is a story of the winged horses of Oc and the women and girls who fly them. The girls who bond with a winged horse spend six years at the Academy of the Air, training. Their bondmates are closer to them than any family member could be, and they devote their entire lives to them. But the son of the Duke of Oc, William, thinks men should also be able to fly, and he will go to any length to make that happen.

Author’s Comments

There is a mystical bond between women and horses, one that is about power, and freedom, and a deep love of beauty. Horses, though large and strong, are sensitive creatures, each with its own personality and its own character. In Airs Beneath the Moon and the books to follow, women experience the ultimate thrill of not only riding a powerful animal, but rising above the ground where no others can go. It’s wish fulfillment, or perhaps a dream realized.

Reviews

Booklist:
“Bishop enables us to visualize the horses in solo flight and complicated formations, scenes at the academy are utterly real, and the characters have dimension. In short, this is a thoroughly satisfying read, fortunately with enough loose ends to justify a sequel.”

—Sally Estes

Read the entire review here: Booklist review on Amazon.com

M & C, Glasgow, Scotland:
“This first in a trilogy about winged horses and the women who ride them does an admirable job of setting up an escalating power struggle. The main antagonist is the new Duke as he attempts to circumvent biology and time honored practices leaving the horsemistresses on the defensive. Strong character development, politics and magical horses all add up to what promises to be a lively and engaging trilogy.”

—M & C

More reviews can be found at: Girls Horse Club, Barnes & Noble SF Editor, BookLoon

And an interview is here: TeensReadToo.com

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Excerpts

Listen to an Audio sample:

Download

Airs Beneath the Moon

Beyond the barn’s single, unglazed window, the stars began to dissolve, one by one, drowning in the chill gray light of dawn. The cows huddled together, head to tail, for comfort and for warmth. The goats stood silent and uneasy in their night pen, listening to the little dun mare laboring in the box stall. It had gone on all night, Char and her mistress grunting and groaning together. Now, as the sky began to brighten, Char’s time had come at last.

Char pushed. Larkyn Hamley, boots braced in the wet straw, pulled. Birth fluids soaked her tabard and her tangled skirts, and filled the stall with an odor both acrid and sweet. Lark knew the smell to be the essence of coming life, of the force that made the crops grow and the moon wax and wane. It was also the scent of death, of the melting of one time into another. Larkyn Hamley was a girl of the soil and the seasons, and her blood surged with the power of the moment, the alchemy of life striving to be.

“Once again, Char,” she panted. Salty sweat dripped in her eyes, but she had no hand free to wipe it away. She tried to lift her shoulder to get teh worst of it, but a fresh spasm wracked Char’s body, and Lark set herself again to pull ont he foal’s slick fetlocks. “Lovely girl,” Lark said. “That’s my brave girl. Once again!”

The mare’s sides rippled with effort. Lark’s hands cramped, and she begged Kalla for strength, even though she, an Uplands farm girl, had no right to pray to the horse goddess. It was for Char, poor little Char, her foundling.

Lark knew nothing of horses except what the dun mare had taught her. Horses were rare in the Uplands, and there had never been one on Deeping Farm, nor in the village of Willakeep. Lark had stumbled upon Char standing ankle-deep in the icy waters of the Black River, her ribs standing out like the curved pickets of the haymow, and her hide, the color of smoke from the autumn chimneys, torn by brambles. Neither Lark nor her brothers knew then that Char was with foal, but now, just as sharp-toothed winter began to loosen its bite on the Uplands, she had come to term.

The foal lay widdershins, hind feet first. Lark had tried everything she knew to turn it, without success. Once it was on its way, there was nothing left but to see it through. She gasped for air, in rhythm with Char. She tugged, and Char groaned. The mare gave one last heave. There was a deep, rushing sound, and the foal’s body slid, limp and awkward, legs asprawl, to the matted straw.

A gray shroud, streaked with red, masked its nose and mouth. Lark ripped at the gelatinous stuff with her fingers, clearing the tiny muzzle. She bent, and blew fiercely into the foal’s nostrils. A shuddering breath rewarded her, and a little mewling cry. She cried out herself, exclaiming in wonder as she cradled the wet creature in her arms. His coat felt gluey and rough beneath her hands.

When she was certain his breathing was steady, she lifted her eyes. “Char, look!” she said softly. “Look at your little one!”

The mare always responded to Lark’s voice, had done so even on that very first day, when she was so weak she could barely walk. Lark had coaxed her, stumbling step by stumbling step, through the fields to the barn. But now, Char lay exhausted. Her ribs barely moved, and her black forelock tangled in her long eyelashes. Even as Lark watched, the little mare’s breathing slowed., and her dark eyes fixed on some point only she could see.

“Oh, no,” Lark whispered.

Lark was a country girl. She knew the look of death, from slaughtering days, from accidents, from her own mother’s illness. She understood the dimming of the light in the mare’s eyes, the rattle of her last breath, her sigh of release, the stare into nothingness.

Lark, little more than a child herself, hugged the motherless foal to her breast, and cried. She gave in to her grief and exhaustion and shock, and sobbed.

The foal began to mewl and wriggle in her arms, reminding her of the dawn chill. Her wet clothes were icy, and the foal, too, was wet and cold to the touch. She had to get him dry.

She had brought a pile of old towels to the barn with her when she saw that char’s time had drawn near. Now she plucked one from the stack and gently rubbed the foal’s head and neck. He struggled to his feet, leaning against her, long-legged, big-eyed, quaking with weakness. She steadied him with one hand, and reached along his withers and spine with the other to scour away the remnants of the birth sac.

The slow morning sun slanted through the window. Lark felt it on her cheeks. It would be gilding the frosty grasses in the north pasture, glittering on the fallow fields to the south, shining on the slate roof of the farmhouse, silvering the scraps of late snow. It brightened the stall so she could see that the colt was as black as the blackstone of the Uplands that gave the river its name.

She slid the towel down the foal’s ribs, and stopped. Something stayed ehr hand, some solid, living structure beneath the towel.

The foal made the little choked sound again, a sob of his own. With care, Lark pushed him away from her to see what it was that grew below his withers, behind his shoulders.

What she saw filled her with awe and dread.

Everyone knew that an animal such as this belonged to the Duke, and the duke alone. Oc was a tiny and beleaguered duchy, with scarce resources. Its desolate coastline lay open to the sea lanes, coveted by other duchies, by bigger principalities. Creatures such as this, Char’s foal, were Kalla’s special gifts. They were Oc’s most precious resource, the envy of every duke, prince, and king. To tamper with their bloodlines was to commit high treason. Had any of the Hamleys realized…

But of course they hadn’t. How could they? They could never have guessed that little Char carried such a marvel. That such a being would appear here, on Deeping Farm, was an event of such magnitude Lark could hardly comprehend it.

With trembling fingers, she caressed the colt’s slender head, and then held him close, her arms gentle around his fragile neck.

“By Zito’s ears, little one!” she breathed. “You have wings!”

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