What a glorious read this is---it's way more than five stars. It's rare for me to pick up a book and be completely blown off course with it. Hamnet is one of those books. The lyrical quality of the prose kept me entranced from start to finish as the storyline moves through a fascinating plot and settings that come alive. It humanized Shakespeare in a way I've never experienced. (Of special note: this is one of the best scenes depicting childbirth I have ever read. )
WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER 2021 'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times 'A thing of shimmering wonder' David Mitchell
TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.
On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?
Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.
Jamaica Inn is a classic of the gothic genre with DuMaurier's genius on full display. What stays with the reader is the weighty and atmospheric gothic setting of the Cornish moors along with the riveting tale of Mary Yellan.
After the death of her mother, Mary Yellan crosses the windswept Cornish moors to Jamaica Inn, the home of her Aunt Patience. There she finds Patience a changed woman, downtrodden by her domineering, vicious husband Joss Merlyn. The inn is a front for a lawless gang of criminals, and Mary is unwillingly dragged into their dangerous world of smuggling and murder. Before long she will be forced to cross her own moral line to save herself.
I love it when I find an original story told well and this one is it. It is considered an "illustrated mystery". Illustrations go hand in hand with the narrative as the mystery unfurls. There is also some supernatural and horror in the mix which adds some lagniappe to the end result.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER · OPTIONED FOR NETFLIX BY A PRODUCER OF THE BATMAN
“I loved it." —Stephen King
From Edgar Award-finalist Jason Rekulak comes a wildly inventive spin on the supernatural thriller, for fans of Stranger Things and Riley Sager, about a woman working as a nanny for a young boy with strange and disturbing secrets.
Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab when she takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.
Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nightly runs, and…
What truly matters in a world where nothing is as it seems, and everyone has something to hide?
Margaret O'Keefe, a horse farm owner, is desperate to save her ancestral property, Needham Forest. When she hears a rumor about hidden treasure on her land, she plunges into a search that uncovers more than gold with secrets, betrayal, and danger at every turn.
Caught between her volatile ex-husband, her benefactor’s personal problems, and a complicated romance with her lover, Robert, Margaret finds herself entangled in a web of deceit that threatens everything she holds dear. As her world spirals out of control, she must decide what to fight for…and what to leave behind.
