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  • Published: 2 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9780091940423
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 448
  • RRP: $14.99

Shakespeare's Mistress

Historical Fiction




A delicious and intriguing historical novel about the woman who was William Shakespeare's secret wife...

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.

  • Published: 2 January 2012
  • ISBN: 9780091940423
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 448
  • RRP: $14.99

About the author

Karen Harper

A life-long Ohioan, Karen was born in Toledo, Ohio. Her father was a designing engineer and her mother an elementary school teacher. She credits the women in her family with her early love of reading and telling stories: her mother and both her grandmothers were great readers and family historians.

Karen majored in English and Education at Ohio University and then attended graduate school at The Ohio State University. She specialized in early English literature and wrote her master’s thesis on the Shakespeare play All’s Well That Ends Well. Living in Columbus since 1967, Karen taught Brit Lit and composition at Whetstone High School and ofr 10 years, she was English department chair and teacher at Westerville North High School, where she was an advisor for the creative writing magazine.

First published in 1982, Karen left teaching to write full time in 1984. Karen and her husband Don have made many trips to the British Isles to research her historical novels. England and Scotland are her “favorite places on the planet.”

Besides historical novels, Karen also writes contemporary suspense novels which have been on the USA TODAY and New York Times bestseller lists. She is the winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Award for her Amish-set novel, Dark Angel. Her work has been translated into foreign languages including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Hungarian, Polish and Turkish.

Harper’s historical novels include Shakespeare's Mistress, The Queen’s Governess, The Last Boleyn, The First Princess of Wales, The Irish Princess and The Queen's Confidante. Library Journal says of Harper's historicals, "As good as the best of Philippa Gregory...sure to be a big hit with historical fiction fans and book clubs."

To find out more visit www.KarenHarperAuthor.com

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Praise for Shakespeare's Mistress

So vivid and authentic - a totally satisfying recreation of one of the great Shakespeare mysteries. I couldn't put it down

Rosalind Miles, author of I, Elizabeth and Guinevere

Harper...knows her period well, and it shows...often in sure handling of the details of politics, theatre, and daily life, including some harrowing passages featuring childbirth and the plague

Booklist

The novels chief pleasures derive from the easy interaction of Shakespeare's work, the history of Elizabethan England and the life that the author imagines Shakespeare might have had

Publishers Weekly

Elizabethan history has never been this appealing

NEWSDAY

In a wonderful, lively, insightful and heartbreaking love story, Harper allows Shakespeare's secret wife, Anne Whateley, to narrate her colorful, lusty story. With her sharp eye for detail and dialogue, Harper delivers a tale that resounds with the colour and atmosphere of life in the theatre, London and the intrigues that ran rampant in England

Romantic Times

One of the most exquisite novels I have read in a very long time

Michelle Moran

a highly readable book for anyone who enjoys Tudor history

Daily Mail