The daughter of a Venetian musician, Aemilia Bassano came of age in Queen Elizabeth’s royal court. The Queen’s favorite, she develops a love of poetry and learning, maturing into a young woman known not only for her beauty but also her sharp mind and quick tongue. Aemilia becomes the mistress of Lord Hunsdon, but her position is precarious. Then she crosses paths with an impetuous playwright named William Shakespeare and begins an impassioned but ill-fated affair.
A decade later, the Queen is dead, and Aemilia Bassano is now Aemilia Lanyer, fallen from favor and married to a fool. Like the rest of London, she fears the plague. And when her young son Henry takes ill, Aemilia resolves to do anything to save him, even if it means seeking help from her estranged lover, Will—or worse, making a pact with the Devil himself.
In rich, vivid detail, Sally O’Reilly breathes life into England’s first female poet, a mysterious woman nearly forgotten by history. Full of passion and devilish schemes, Dark Aemilia is a tale worthy of the Bard.
MY REVIEW:
Sally O’Reilly’s “Dark Aemilia” is a gripping tale of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady, Aemilia Bassano. A woman ahead of her time, she has a love of poetry and learning and dreams of being published using her own name. She has strong feelings about the roles of men and women – especially when it comes to The Taming of the Shrew and she has NO problems telling Shakespeare what she thinks of his play. Needless to say, they didn’t become lovers straight away.
O’Reilly’s descriptions of Elizabethan England are vivid – from the theatres to the dirty streets – and the reader is taken on a tour from the rooms of Queen Elizabeth’s home to the dark parts of town where magic is secretly performed. Character development is good, although at the end of the book, I felt like Aemilia is the only person I really knew. Which is fine considering she’s the title character, but as William was her lover, I expected more from him. I really could feel the passion between the two of them, though, and I wish there had been more scenes with them together. What I really found myself drawn to was the dark magic aspect of the story. I found it fascinating!
I really enjoyed the entire book. Sally O’Reilly did a wonderful job blending Tudor language into her writing without making it cumbersome or awkward to read. What a promising debut novel this is. I’m already looking forward to reading her next.
GIVEAWAY:
I’m very pleased to announce that I have FIVE copies of Dark Aemilia to give away to readers of my blog! Entering is easy – just comment on this post with your email address (So I can contact you if you win) and also give me a favourite line(s) from any Shakespeare sonnet. (Google works if you don’t know any off hand..haha) Contest is open to residents of Canada and the US and winners will be contacted by me on September 15th. Good luck!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sally O’Reilly has received numerous citations for her fiction, which has been shortlisted for the Ian St James Short Story Prize and the Cosmopolitan Short Story Award. A former Cosmopolitan New Journalist of the Year, her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Sunday Times, the Evening Standard, and the New Scientist. She teaches creative writing at the Open University and the University of Portsmouth in England. Dark Aemilia is her U.S. debut.
For information and news please visit Sally O’Reilly’s website and the Dark Aemilia Facebook Page.
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Review at Awesome Book Assessment
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Guest Post at Just One More Chapter
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Review & Giveaway at Book Nerd
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Review at A Book Geek
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Review & Giveaway at Beth’s Book Reviews
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Review & Giveaway at Peeking Between the Pages
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Review at A Chick Who Reads
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Review at WTF Are You Reading?
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Book Drunkard 
August 31, 2014 at 11:03 pm
Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win,by fearing to attempt. Measure for measure act 1 scene IV
August 31, 2014 at 11:33 pm
“I see a woman may be made a fool,
If she had not a spirit to resist.”
(Taming of the Shrew)
Je suis la Renard! 😉
September 1, 2014 at 3:20 am
“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves” (Julius Ceasar)
I find this such a hopeful quote 🙂
September 1, 2014 at 6:51 am
I always loved this one:
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.” (Sonnet 130)
September 1, 2014 at 8:21 am
“O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odor which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly
When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses:
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo’d and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odors made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.” Sonnet LIV.
Annette @ bellevieanne@gmail.com
September 2, 2014 at 12:23 am
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.
September 2, 2014 at 2:13 pm
“But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. ”
– this is just a portion of sonnet 18. I just love it!
September 2, 2014 at 2:19 pm
Midsummer’s Night Dream
TITANIA
…” His mother was one of my worshippers, and we always used to gossip together at night in India, sitting together by the ocean and watching the merchant ships sailing on the ocean. We used to laugh to see the sails fill up with wind so that they looked like they had big, pregnant bellies, as if the wind had gotten them pregnant. She would imitate them—since she was already pregnant with the little boy—and she would go sailing over the land herself to go get me little presents, and come back carrying gifts like she was a ship coming back from a voyage….”
September 15, 2014 at 1:56 pm
Thanks for this great giveaway. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Sonnet 18. My ultimate favorite ever.
September 15, 2014 at 8:17 pm
in black ink my love may still shine bright. – sonnet 65.
I wonder if Dark Aemilia is based on Sonnet 130?
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
kinda sounds like it 😉
email address: sensitivemuse [at] gmail.com
September 16, 2014 at 8:42 am
Oh my!!! I am so intrigued to read this book…everyones comments just enhanced my desire! 😉