Gentle's prose goes down easy, and I was intrigued by the set up, however Conrad, Leonora, and Roberto all felt... half formed? I wish the concept of Conrad's sense of loss of Nora had been established earlier. As a character, she came as a surprise. I did enjoy Gentle's reversal of operatic themes, and how instead of choosing between two lovers, Leonora opts for proto-polyamory. It was a nice turn.

Conrad seemed less curious about the returned dead than I would have liked, for all his skepticism of religion. Perhaps it is because Gentle treats it as such a background thing in her world building, just an accepted part of existence, but that doesn't explain Conrad's immediate embrace of his hunch-turned-fact that the returned dead come back of their own willpower.

Not a bad book. Worth a read for the reversals and inversions of tropes.