I read The Final Confession of Mabel Stark by Robert Hough yesterday. Right away I liked it, but I knew that it was a female protagonist that I found less real because she was being imagined by a male author.

It was mostly during the beginning of the story highlighting the problems she had with her first husband. The talk of her difficulty with "wifely duties" and the like.. (phrases like 'akin to straddling a bedpost' and such which at least to have been realistic should have been more absurd in my opinion)It worried me that what didn't ring true for me would continue throughout the entire book.

So anyway, early on I noted this flaw in the character's inner monologue, and yet still knew I was going to like the book because the pace of the story pushed you on, and otherwise it was a compelling narrative.

So how funny was it when I got to the end of the book and found out Mabel Stark was real?

It's clearly a story that was merely inspired by a real person, and the actual details of Mabel's life are obviously imagined, but still- I'm really really fascinated.

I loved the fact that Mabel's first acts in the circus were in burlesque (especially since Le Cirque Rouge has a fabulous sillohuette "serpentine" dance similar to what they describe her doing in the Little Egypt act) and you know, she commanded tigers.

What's not to fascinate?