Shakespeare's Mistress
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Shakespeare's Mistress for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Book Description
A delicious and intriguing historical novel about the woman who was William Shakespeare's secret wife...
Product Description
England, 1601.
When Queen Elizabeth's men come looking for William Shakespeare - a rumoured Catholic in a time of Catholic-Protestant intrigue and insurrection - they first question a beautiful, dark-haired woman who seems to know the famous playwright very well. Too well.
She is Anne Whateley, born in Temple Grafton, a small town just up the river from Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. And as church records show - were anyone to look for them - Anne Whateley was wed to William Shakespeare in a small country church just days before he married another woman, Anne Hathaway, who has lived as his wife for decades.
In SHAKESPEARE'S MISTRESS, Anne Whateley - who may or may not be Will's true wife - tells her story. Stretching almost fifty years, from the rural villages of Warwickshire to the bustling city of London, with its teeming streets and lively theatres, it's a story of undying passion, for life, love, and literature.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I tried so hard to get into this book, but for me it was just a non starter. I very very rarely give up on a book, but over half way through and I still struggled to see that the book was really going anywhere. The characters were washy, and although I didn't dislike them, I never really warmed to them, or felt any compassion for them
The pace of the book seemed very odd to me, and sometimes I felt like I had been stranded somewhere and I had no idea where I was. I just could not see where it was going. There would be days between me picking the book up. Usually if I get into a book I won't put it down, but I felt this book just dragging along. It just didn't engage me at all.
The pace of the book seemed very odd to me, and sometimes I felt like I had been stranded somewhere and I had no idea where I was. I just could not see where it was going. There would be days between me picking the book up. Usually if I get into a book I won't put it down, but I felt this book just dragging along. It just didn't engage me at all.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Oh dear. I hate to write a bad review of a book but I really struggled to get to the end of this book. I'm going to do my best to be balanced. On the plus side the author has managed to string together a reasonable story. On the down side - where to begin? The author has clearly done some research but she seems to be so pleased with this newfound knowledge that she forces it into the mouths of her characters in a way that jars - particularly in reference to the plays - lines from which she uses in the mouth of the main character in such a clumsy way I nearly threw the book in the bin. The entire narrative arc is ridiculously pat - the meetings and events that occur throughout (I won't detail them - I don't want to spoil it for you if this is your cup of tea) are far fetched in the extreme. I won't go on any more - in my opinion this is utterly awful writing - if you enjoy historical fiction / romance I would point you to Anya Seaton or even Jean Plaidy rather than this tripe. Sorry.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Being a fan of all things Shakespearean, I thought this might be a diverting read with an interesting new twist on the story of his life.
Whilst it is a potentially interesting premise (that the dark lady of the sonnets was really Shakespeare's first love - the woman he married just before he married Miss Hathaway), the quality of the writing does not deliver for me. There is a very clear attempt to use the narrative voice to create a sense of period - and it does not really capture the essence of the language of the time. It all feels slightly contrived and arch.
This is further exacerbated with the dropping in of phrases from the Complete Works - this really jarred with me and made it hard to take the writing seriously.
If you don't take it too seriously, I guess this could be a diverting piece of fluff. If you have any interest in Shakespeare, his life and works, I suspect you really will find it just a bit too lightweight. I know it is not a piece of scholarly writing but the prose does not carry enough weight to do justice to what had the potential to be an interesting piece of speculative history.
Whilst it is a potentially interesting premise (that the dark lady of the sonnets was really Shakespeare's first love - the woman he married just before he married Miss Hathaway), the quality of the writing does not deliver for me. There is a very clear attempt to use the narrative voice to create a sense of period - and it does not really capture the essence of the language of the time. It all feels slightly contrived and arch.
This is further exacerbated with the dropping in of phrases from the Complete Works - this really jarred with me and made it hard to take the writing seriously.
If you don't take it too seriously, I guess this could be a diverting piece of fluff. If you have any interest in Shakespeare, his life and works, I suspect you really will find it just a bit too lightweight. I know it is not a piece of scholarly writing but the prose does not carry enough weight to do justice to what had the potential to be an interesting piece of speculative history.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Please, no more, make it stop
Never mind "Romeo and the Pirate's Daughter" - this is "Will Shakespeare and the Italian tightrope dancer's daughter" - the story of Will and Ann (not Hathaway) his exotic dark... Read more
Published 8 days ago by Constant Reader
Would recommend for fans of Phillipa Gregory
If you like your historical novels then this book is for you. I am not sure about the historical accuracy, but this does not get in the way of a good story. Read more
Published 19 days ago by L. mckay
Shakespeare's Mistress - good but not brilliant
Shakespeare's Mistress
Not the first, or last, Karen Harper novel I've read. I found it good but not brilliant. Read more
Not the first, or last, Karen Harper novel I've read. I found it good but not brilliant. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Bruce Boogie
Enjoyable but not fully engaging
(sub-contracted to my better half)
An enjoyable historical novel telling the mysterious love story of William Shakespeare, examining who was his real wife - his... Read more
An enjoyable historical novel telling the mysterious love story of William Shakespeare, examining who was his real wife - his... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Dr. P. J. A. Wicks
Didn't like it, Wife didn't like it either
My Wife has read dozens of novels set in the reigns of Henry the Eighth and Queen Elizabeth the first. Many have been entertaining and very readable. Read more
Published 2 months ago by F. Proctor
Entertaining and informative Elizabethan read
I'll start off by confessing that I'm not a Shakespeare fan - hated reading his plays at school and have never managed to read or sit through one since. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Denise4891
Fact or Fiction ?
The story is that William Shakespeare was married to Anne Whateley his half-Italian childhood sweetheart on the day before he was married to Anne Hathaway, (owing to Mistress Anne... Read more
Published 2 months ago by BusyReader
A good read., but slow to get going at first
A book about Mistress Anne Whatley, supposedly the first wife of William Shakespeare, who was left by the wayside when William then wed Anne Hathaway. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Peter Coupe
I enjoyed it!
This is the second novel by Karen Harper that I've read and I've enjoyed them both. I'm quite surprised by the strength of some of the negative reviews - I take the point that... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Easterchick
Interesting insights but 100 pages too long
I've given this book 4 stars because of the little snippets of information on Elizabethan life that Karen Harper spreads liberally throughout the book. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mr. D. J. Carr
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Fiction > Historical
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
