An intricate tour de force that conjures a new vision of the Bard’s early days.
A fictional imagining of William Shakespeare’s lost years, complete with espionage, barbed wit, and an unexpected relationship with Christopher Marlowe.
Novelist and playwright Blixt turns his attention to an extravagant and bawdy tale of the future Bard of Avon’s young misadventures before taking to quill and ink. The story begins with a teacher by the name of William Falstaff—actually Shakespeare, under an assumed name—who finds himself aiding and abetting the small-town antics of an alluring stranger named Kit, who’s none other than Christopher Marlowe, and their escapades grow to encompass foiling a plot against the life and throne of Queen Elizabeth. Drawing upon meticulously executed and seamlessly laid out historical research, Blixt gives shape to the Babington Plot of 1586, complete with all the expected real-life figures and a few of the author’s own creation. Surrounded by secrecy, betrayal, and political intrigue, the duo maintains a sense of levity and rakish delight in their undertakings, further buoyed by the budding romantic relationship that the author insinuates between them. Blixt deepens this latter plotline perhaps too soon, and he seems to lose its thread among the many convoluted turnings of the main story—sacrificing a closer character and relationship study for the sake of suspense and thrills. Will and Kit together traverse reputedly unsavory aspects of London society, finding in them much more humanity and grace than they expected; they navigate, also, the acuity of the group of 16th-century playwrights and writers called the Wits, of which Kit is a member along with John Lyly, Robert Greene, George Peele, and others. Breaking up all the insult-hurling, cipher-breaking, and law-evading are impassioned and eloquent discussions of the English canon, the future of the theater, and other intriguing questions. Overall, it makes for a delightful tour of British literary history, and Shakespeare lovers will delight in this imaginative and immersive work.
An intricate tour de force that conjures a new vision of the Bard’s early days.Pub Date: July 22, 2021
ISBN: 978-4-86751-441-2
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Next Chapter
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance from Li. Brava!
“What can a miserable man and a miserable woman do for each other?” Li illustrates how two Romantic era musicians navigated such a relationship.
An unusually placed coda serves as a prelude, not a conclusion, to Li’s recreation of the tumultuous lives of musicians Adelaide Percheron and John Field. Adelaide, an Indian-born orphan of mixed racial heritage, has just learned of the death of her estranged husband, John—credited with the development of the nocturne as a musical form—after years of living separately and pursuing their individual artistic passions. Following that intriguing introduction is an insightful account of the indirect paths each took to survive challenging early years and to advance in the world of music. John was born in Dublin in 1782 into a family of Irish musicians who invested heavily in his musical training, hoping to produce “the next Mozart” despite the talented boy’s sensitive and dreamy nature. The precocious and preternaturally self-possessed Adelaide learns the rudiments of the pianoforte from a governess and strategic life lessons from her grandmother. Eventually, she sets out from Pondicherry for the broader opportunities she believes await her in her father’s native France. Against a background of social upheaval across Europe due to revolutions and Napoleon’s rising power, the two grow and mature in musicality and pursue the lives they’ve imagined for themselves. John and Adelaide have just met, in 1807 Moscow, as this volume ends, leaving the door open for Li to explore their relationship in future installments. Peppered with interludes and glances into the future, Li’s novel explores both the modern commodification of music and the value of art as a means of ensuring immortality, a hedge against the “night” that falls when a life ends. Her keen psychological study of the musicians and their muses delivers the themes elegantly.
A virtuoso performance from Li. Brava!Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9780374613051
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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