Divine Lola

A True Story of Scandal and Celebrity

By: Cristina Morató, Andrea Rosenberg - translator

Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell

An enthralling biography about one of the most intriguing women of the Victorian age: the first self-invented international social celebrity.

Lola Montez was one of the most celebrated and notorious women of the nineteenth century. A raven-haired Andalusian who performed her scandalous “Spider Dance” in the greatest performance halls across Europe, she dazzled and beguiled all who met her with her astonishing beauty, sexuality, and shocking disregard for propriety. But Lola was an impostor, a self-invention. Born Eliza Gilbert, the beautiful Irish wild child escaped a stifling marriage and reimagined herself as Lola the Sevillian flamenco dancer and noblewoman, choosing a life of adventure, fame, sex, and scandal rather than submitting to the strictures of her era.

Lola cast her spell on the European aristocracy and the most famous intellectuals and artists of the time, including Alexandre Dumas, Franz Liszt, and George Sand, and became the obsession of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. She then set out for the New World, arriving in San Francisco at the height of the gold rush, where she lived like a pioneer and performed for rowdy miners before making her way to New York. There, her inevitable downfall was every bit as dramatic as her rise. Yet there was one final reinvention to come for the most defiant woman of the Victorian age - a woman known as a “savage beauty” who was idolized, romanticized, vilified, truly known by no one, and a century ahead of her time.

©2017 by Cristina Morató. (P)2021 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Translation © 2021 by Andrea Rosenberg.

Critic reviews

“Breezy, emphatic…This twisty chronicle of one woman’s quest for independence is mesmerizing.”—Publishers Weekly

Only somewhat interesting

I should have known better. I’m not interested in modern social celebrities, either. Give me a biography about someone who has actually done something besides splash their name all over the gossip columns! I just couldn’t get enough mojo collected to finish this book. I finally sent it back. Nothing against the writer.

Entrancing story and well performed

My wife turned me on to this a few weeks ago when we were on a long drive. I was captivated by the story and I bought the audio book myself. What an amazing story about an amazing woman.

Mixed feelings

Her story was told well but I did not enjoy learning about her and her character, scandalous woman with bad character not having much to offer. I regret reading about her even when her story was told well. Narration is disappointing to say the last! Narrator chose some mixture of Spanish/french accent no matter what nationality she was representing, it was hideous! She used same accent for Poles, Russians and Germans with made the whole story very unappealing. It would have been better if she resigned from using accents instead of making a Russian or German sounding like French. I disliked this book even more because of it

Riveting Story

I had never heard of Lola Montez. Amazing well detailed story of her life. Very interesting.

Lola

A well written book about the well traveled life story of Lola Montez. The first half of the book I was appalled by Lola’s character and the choices that she made. This made it hard to see the strong, determined, persistent, witty, and progressive women that Lola was very until the later 1/2 of her life.