The novel transports readers to 18th-century Italy—the era of amazing people, great ambitions, and passions. Anne Rice allows you to enter a completely special, music-filled, exquisite and captivating world of wonderful opera-singing castrati and to understand what lies behind the seemingly effortless ease of their lives and outward beauty. Few people know what pain hides in the hearts of these young favorites of kings and idols of the public. Because recognition, fame, and enthusiastic worship are paid for at too high a price, and the souls of idols are full of suffering and pain.