This is a historical fiction story about Agnes Shakespeare, the wife of the renown playwright. History does not reveal a great deal about Shakespeare’s family life so it takes the very talented Maggie O’Farrell to produce this fascinating fiction about Agnes. She is portrayed as a psychic and herbalist who marries William when she is 3 months pregnant with their first child Susanna. They are living in Stratford next door to Shakespeare’s parents. His father is a brutal, angry man and his mother is more subdued. The family tolerates Agnes’ oddness and clairvoyance and respects her intelligence. As William becomes more successful he spends more time in London, leaving Agnes, Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith alone. The plague visits the family home and a child’s death becomes a heartbreaking fissure in the couple’s relationship.
This story is a page turner. It is very well written, characters are well developed and the natural world that Agnes explores and uses for medicines is beautifully described. ( )

I’m still a bit teary eyed, having just spent the past hour reading a description of grief so compelling I was unable to keep my emotions under control.
Maggie O’Farell’s story about Shakespeare’s wife and family immerses the reader so firmly into the family drama I am quite bereft to have to put them aside and go back to my everyday life.

It also makes me want to go back and gut my work in progress and start over, try to create at least a shadow of the feeling she was able to reveal in me.

The creation of Shakespeare’s time and world is marvellous. I can smell the camomile, the sheep, the mud. I saw London as Agnes sees it, the smells, the noise, the casual acceptance of death and torment.

The relationships between the characters are strongly evocative- Agnes’s coolness to her husband after sensing his activities when away, her resentment of his being away while she coped with the family tragedies- these all read true. She forgives him again and again, and this rings true, too.

What really gutted me was the description of Agnes’ grief after the death of Hamlet. I have a child, a grown man now, who, while still alive, refuses to have anything to do with me. The grief associated with this has been as sharp as if he had died, adding the additional barbs of being rejected again and again, day by day. I’ve found it hard to express what that feels like- O’Farrell has done this for me, described the endless searching for him wherever I go, the wishing for one more contact. Anyone who has lost a child will be able to identify with her writing of this grief.

It may hurt to revisit it, but it’s a good hurt, to see one’s feelings laid out by someone who, seemingly, understands. ( )

A view of Shakespeare from another angle. Well told story. ( )

Although historical fiction is not a favoured genre for me, this was a superb fictional account of Shakespeare’s family. It successfully evoked the era and created well drawn characters. I wasn’t completely sold on the ending but the quality of the rest of the book made this a minor quibble. ( )

Ugh why do people like sad books. I am not familiar with the content of the works of Shakespeare, beyond the names and genres, so the fact that he never wrote about plague despite being personally aquatinted with it is surprising and telling. I'm really glad we've figured out vaccines and antibiotics now too. ( )