First sentence:
"A boy is coming down a flight of stairs."
Description:
"England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.
A young Latin tutor--penniless and bullied by a violent father--falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family's land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.
A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a tender and unforgettable reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, and whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time, Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down--a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists." -- from the inside flap
My thoughts:
This is a moving and bitterswet book. I enjoyed learning about Shakespeare's family and their lives during the Black Plague.
Date read: 2/18/2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 4*/5 = great
ISBN-13: 9780525657613
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Year: 2020
# of pages: 305
Binding: Hardcover
LibraryThing page
