On the evening of the 3rd of June, 1843, following her explosive début as a Spanish dancer upon the stage of Her Majesty’s Theatre in London, England, Lola Montez disappeared. Biographies give sketchy details of places she traveled and people she met during the following months, and then the trail picks up with far more documentation (as well as anecdotal evidence and hearsay) throughout the two years that she lived in Paris. The judicial drama in which she played a part, and which appears in this novel, was documented in the courts and the newspapers of the day. As everyone knows, however, we should not always rely upon what we read, nor the angle through which it is told—not even if it is purportedly fact.
My version of these two turbulent years in Lola’s life—1844 to 1846—is firmly based on fact, while spicily seasoned with fabrications and embellishments. I like to think that the real Lola would have approved, since she always believed that a good story filled with larger than life characters and events was better than a boring one that stuck to the truth and nothing but the truth.