Butterfly Cages — Maya Deane

When Varinya Amandrian returns to the capital after a suicide attempt, she is swept back into her mother's political machinations, engaged to a cruel prince, hunted by assassins, and tormented by the memory of a vicious crime. But at the Red Opera, she falls in love. Carlin is the castrato star of the capital stage, a beautiful man crippled with anger and shame. He elopes with Varinya, desperate to prove himself. Their affair is doomed from the beginning.