Inside What Happens in London - Julia Quinn

Inside What Happens in London

Book 2 in the
Bevelstoke Series

 

  • Although What Happens in London is a companion book to The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever, TSDOMMC’s hero and heroine don’t make an appearance. I had originally intended them to, but they didn’t end up fitting in the plot.
  • I’m not so sure I would have made my prince Russian if I’d realized how difficult the language is to translate. Because Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, it needs to be both translated and transliterated. I worked with five different Russian speakers to help me translate the text, and they never agreed on the best way to do it. In the interest of consistency, I ended up going with the translations as done by my copyeditor, whom I’m told has a Masters in Russian literature.
  • Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron first appeared in It’s in His Kiss as one of the books Hyacinth was reading to Lady Danbury. I had no plans to use it again, but when I needed Harry to give Olivia an unusual gift, it just popped into my mind. I LOVED writing the passages in this book. It is seriously fun to write bad literature. So much fun, in fact, that my sister Violet Charles and I turned it into a graphic novel!
  • In regency times, the wealthy had their butlers iron their newspapers before they read them. This was not to eliminate wrinkles but rather to seal the ink so that it did not rub off on people’s hands.
  • “Hell’s Vengeance Boileth in Mine Heart” is the most famous aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and is more commonly referred to as the Queen of the Night’s Aria. It is known for its difficulty, reaching a high F6, which is rare in opera.

Famed soprano Diana Damrau sings the Queen of the Night aria.

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