Historical fiction
Hamnet
by Maggie O'Farrell
Quick take
Shakespearean fans will love this vivd take on the loves and losses of the bard's early adult years.
Good to know
400+ pages
Sad
Real-life characters
Writer's life
Synopsis
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 and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer. Agnes understands plants and potions better than she does people, but once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose gifts as a writer are just beginning to awaken when his beloved young son succumbs to bubonic plague.