WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD A New York Times Best Seller Of all the stories that argue and speculate about Shakespeares life . . . here is a novel . . . so gorgeously written that it transports you. The Boston Globe England 1580 The Black Death creeps across the land an everpresent threat infecting the healthy the sick the old and the young alike. The end of days is near but life always goes on. A young Latin tutorpenniless and bullied by a violent fatherfalls in love with an extraordinary eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her familys land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in StratforduponAvon she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast centrifugal force in the life of her young husband whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever. show more