Monday, July 28, 2014

Dark Aemilia - Sally O'Reilly

Dark Aemilia is an imagined story of Aemilia Bassano, who was Englands first female poet.  An illegitimate daughter of a court musician, she found herself becoming involved with an older nobleman and becomes a farourite of the Queen.  When she becomes pregnant, she gets married off to her cousin a lowly recorder player at court, and is left a large home filled with treasures which her husband slowly gambles away.

It is suggested that she may have been the mistress of William Shakespeare, and her own writings may have influenced him in his plays and sonnets.  I liked a lot of the novel, but it did feel a bit jumpy for me, and I had a hard time keeping the story in my head, as it swung from one idea to the next.  3/5

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