Today I want to do a short review of the book The Phantom of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth. This is a novel that continued the story of The Phantom of the Opera. Andrew Lloyd Webber himself was a great supporter of this novel, and would years later use it as a basis for his own Phantom sequel, Love Never Dies!
The story tells of how Erik, the Phantom, never died. Instead he went into hiding, and then moved to New York City. He lived in Coney Island, and the bulk of the story gets going when Christine comes to New York to sing at the opera house. Erik, is of course, involved with the opera, and he approached her after watching her perform.
Christine is by then married to Raoul, and raising her son. Unsurprisingly, the Phantom wants to win Christine’s heart away from Raoul. Christine resists cheating on her husband. This is as much as I will say about the plot, as I feel telling any more information would ruin the story for anyone who wants to read it!
It is well written, and fast paced. I throughly enjoyed going deeper into the story of the Phantom! I love the tragedy of the story, and thought it was really powerful. I was crying by the time the book came to a close. I highly recommend it for people who love the Phantom story, but be warned this is not a happy ending!
I hope you have liked my review of this sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is the cover of the book. I found the image on amazon.com.
Further Reading
- The Phantom of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth
White Rose of Avalon 