📖 Book Review ~ Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons

 

Zaffre 
31 July 2023

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

Was the greatest love story of all time a lie?

The first time Romeo Montague sees young Rosaline Capulet he falls instantly in love.

Rosaline, headstrong and independent, is unsure of Romeo's attentions but with her father determined that she join a convent, this handsome and charming stranger offers her the chance of a different life.

Soon though, Rosaline begins to doubt all that Romeo has told her. She breaks off the match, only for Romeo's gaze to turn towards her cousin, thirteen-year-old Juliet. Gradually Rosaline realises that it is not only Juliet's reputation at stake, but her life.

With only hours remaining before she will be banished behind the nunnery walls, will Rosaline save Juliet from her Romeo? Or can this story only ever end one way?

A subversive, powerful untelling of Shakespeare's best-known tale, narrated by a fierce, forgotten voice: this is Rosaline's story.

📖 My Review..

The essence of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet will, undoubtedly, stand the test of time. however, in Fair Rosaline, the author gives us an altogether different interpretation of this iconic love story which may not please the purists but hey, this is fiction and is, after all,  just the author’s interpretation of the story.

There is bit of a slow start but then once it picked up pace I enjoyed watching how the story unfolded. The author writes well and there’s enough historical authenticity to help bring the story to life. Looking at the background to the story of ill-fated young lovers is what makes this interesting especially as we look more at Rosaline’s character and her role in this story. Whilst Romeo doesn’t come out of this unblemished what it does show is that women, at this time, in history had very little choice as fathers, lovers and husbands all used them for their own ambition.

Fair Rosaline is an interesting version of a story I thought I knew well so all credit to the author for providing an imaginative re-telling of a much loved classic.

About the Author

Natasha Solomons is a writer and the New York Times bestselling author of The Gallery of Vanished Husbands, The House at Tyneford, and Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English. She lives in Dorset, England, with her husband and their two young children. 

Twitter @natashasolomons #FairRosaline

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