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Sunday, March 22, 2015

The Tutor

Andrea Chapin has produced a riveting work of historical fiction in her debut novel, The Tutor (#477).  It's 1590, and Elizabeth I is actively persecuting the remaining Catholic members of the peerage.  Katherine de L'Isle is a member of the extended family of one such Catholic household in Lancashire.  Their tutor, in reality the family priest, has been brutally murdered when William Shakespeare comes to Luwanfal in his place to tutor the boys of the family.  He couldn't be more different in personality or methods than Father Daulton, and it doesn't take Katherine, as a young widow, long to fall under his spell.

Other members of the household try to warn Katherine of Shakespeare's penchant for playing a different role for every person to suit his own personal agenda, but she will not listen to them and falls headlong in love with him,  Will claims he cannot write without her, as she corrects his verse and suggests conceits and imagery for him to use.  He binds her ever closer with his words and attention until she is convinced he returns her regard.  The question becomes: who is tutoring whom?  Katherine is so blinded by her obsession with Will she cannot even sense the currents in the household around her.  It seems nothing can end well here.

I'm not a Shakespeare fan.  I never have been, but this book cements my feelings about him.  Katherine is normally such an intelligent woman.  Without the mitigating influence of her Uncle Edwards's love and care when he exiles himself abroad to escape Elizabeth's clutches, she is ripe for such an opportunist as Will to take advantage of her.  I was disappointed that she could not at least keep her dignity in the end, but as the real Shakespeare said, "All's well that ends well.", and so it proves here.  If you are interested in this period of history, The Tutor is not to be missed.

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