"A thrilling departure: a short, piercing, deeply moving novel about the death of Shakespeare's 11 year old son Hamnet--a name interchangeable with Hamlet in 15th century Britain--and the years leading up to the production of his great play. England, 1580. A young Latin tutor--penniless, bullied by a violent father--falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman--a wild creature who walks her family's estate with a falcon on her shoulder...

Venice, 1586. William Shakespeare is disguised as a steward to the English Ambassador. He and his actor friends, Oldcastle and Hemming, possess a deadly secret: the names of the Catholic spies in England who seek to destroy Queen Elizabeth. Before long the Popes agents begin to close in on them, so fleeing the city is the players only option.In Verona, Aemelia, the daughter of a Duke, is struggling to conceal her passionate affair with her cousin...

"Miranda Hatch is a scholar, and at the advanced age of twenty-six, she is undoubtedly a spinster. Her single-minded ambition leads her not to seek a husband but to discover the lost manuscripts of William Shakespeare. So when she discovers a connection between the Bard and the local dashing marquess, she pens a letter requesting access to papers that might secure her academic triumph. Lord Robert Hamilton is drowning in debt and must turn things...