December was a fruitful month for new adaptations!
The Most Dangerous Dream: Leroux’s Phantom Reimagined by Kelsey Brickl is a period retelling of the story with significant changes to the original, including the Phantom beginning a romance with Christine before Raoul’s arrival and apparently some sort of move across the world to Argentina. Only reading will tell more.
Love in Full Bloom by Patti Chiappa is the fifth in her ever-expanding series, with yet more heavenly shenanigans courtesy of an Erik who is a literal Angel of Music and a dramatic soap opera plot full of terminal comas and triumphal returns.
The Gentleman Spirit by Patti Chiappa is the sixth following it, featuring a prominent abortion plot, drug rehab, and Raoul being the literal devil and I just do not know what else I could even tell you.
About-Face by Wendy Coles-Littlepage is the second in a series, following her first novel Disfigured, and is a continuation sequel involving the Phantom and his lady love haring off to America for new adventures and trials. Regardless of our feelings on the plot, I think we can all appreciate a good face pun.
The Wedding Mask and Other Tales by Kitty-Lydia Dye is a collection of fifteen new short stories (mostly period, it looks like), following up on her smaller Phantom-themed collection A Christmas Carriage Ride and Other Stories, with stories centering primarily on the love triangle between Christine, Raoul, and Erik.
The Phantom of the Opera by Ken Hill is the script for the famous first stage version of the Phantom story, hailing from the early 1980s and well-loved for its classical opera score and take on the story. If you’re interested in the finer points of the script beyond a cast recording, now’s your chance!
The Phantom Janitor by Vincenzo Pasquarella is, I will not lie, most definitely a furry novel, with anthropomorphic characters and a leading man who is very literally a wolf. It appears to be a modern-day adaptation with a little Phantom story and possibly a little Hamlet, but the specifics are hard to guess from blurbs!
Facebook Phantom by Suzanne Sangi is the most questionable one on the list; an enigmatic figure online begins mentoring and trying to help a young girl “find happiness”, but who he is and why he has taken an interest in her is less than certain. It could be a more run-of-the-mill mystery offering, but we’d have to read to be sure.
Phantom of the Choir Loft by Steve Stroble is a short story set in a modern-day small-town church, with a “ghost” haunting the organ loft and harassing churchgoers. Apparently there are detectives involved!
The Phantom’s Apprentice by Heather Webb is an awesome new take on the story, with a Christine who sings because her father wanted the career for her but secretly longs to be a stage magician, and is trying to manipulate the Phantom into letting her learn his secrets while he tries to manipulate her into being his protege. A neat concept!
Also, for the gamers:
The Danse Macabre series is super hit-or-miss, with some entries clearly Phantom-based and others related only because there’s a bad guy in a mask or things take place in a vaguely creepy theater setting. Nevertheless, this one looks like the real deal: a ghost disrupting rehearsals for a new opera and a lead actress under terrible threat!
