Dark Lady's Mask, The

Named One of the Best Books of the Year by the St. Paul Pioneer Press An absorbing bildungsroman that grapples with strikingly contemporary issues of gender and religious identificationNew York Times Book Review An exquisite portrait of a Renaissance woman pursuing her artistic destiny in England and Italy, who mayor may notbe Shakespeares Dark Lady.Margaret George, best-selling author of Elizabeth I Aemilia Bassano Lanier is beautiful and accomplished, but her societal conformity ends there. She frequently cross-dresses to escape her loveless marriage and to gain freedoms only men enjoyand then a chance encounter with a ragged, little-known poet named Shakespeare changes everything. The two outsiders strike up a literary bargain: they leave plague-ridden London for Italy, where they begin secretly writing comedies together and where Will falls in love with the beautiful countryand with Aemilia, his Dark Lady. Their Italian idyll, though, cannot last. Will gains fame and fortune for their plays back in London and years later publishes the sonnets mocking his former muse. Not one to stand by in humiliation, Aemilia takes up her own pen in her defense, and in defense of all women. The idea of a smart, beautiful, artistic woman telling Shakespeare, We shall write comedies, you and I is as heady as the elderflower wine Aemilias household staff brews.Washington Post Atmospheric, well-researched, carefully plottedand, like Shakespeares plays, chock-full of equal parts mirth and pith to please all.Minneapolis Star Tribune