The sex scenes in Fate are extraordinarily tasteful but definitely realistic. I found this was the only way to proceed when it came to Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality. There’s nothing written that your average fifteen-year-old would not be aware of. The sensual “scenes” are never more than a few paragraphs long, many even briefer than that. I mention this because there has been much criticism about it in my customer reviews… every single one of the “one-star” ratings state that this is pornography. I reject that completely. (And these readers gave no additional stars for the writing itself, the story, the formatting, the years of research and then of editing, and the heartfelt emotion on my part to get Pyotr Ilyich’s story out there.) I believe the low scores are a result of those readers’ own emotion and anger; anger that I dared to place a beloved historical figure in a sexual situation, or that I dared to actually show he was homosexual. Some reviews stated that his sexuality should not be mentioned because it had nothing to do with his musical compositions… In this book I show that it had everything to do with his musical compositions. By the way, these sensual scenes mostly take place in the first half of the book while Pyotr Ilyich was young and having affairs.

Their anger is not my problem. If you (prospective reader) are homophobic in the extreme and truly believe Pyotr Ilyich could not have been gay, then God bless you. The fact is, he was quite naughty and I actually had to “clean him up” a bit. It should be noted that most other readers gave “Fate” the full five stars. The well-known Historical Novel Society said is was a must-read and that it was one of the most important books about Tchaikovsky ever written.

And one last point: a best-selling novel about the building of medieval cathedrals (which I will not name here) included many pornographic-style, highly gratuitous sex scenes that unnecessarily go on for five to six pages… it became a best-seller anyway because no one was offended by fictional characters that were neither beloved or historic. Don’t be timid; do yourself a favor and read “Fate.” It will make you a Tchaikovsky insider and change you forever.

-Adin Dalton