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    The Dark Lady's Mask
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    The Dark Lady's Mask
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    The Dark Lady's Mask
    Audiobook15 hours

    The Dark Lady's Mask

    Written by Mary Sharratt

    Narrated by Jilly Bond

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Aemilia Bassano Lanier is beautiful and accomplished, but her societal conformity ends there. She frequently cross-dresses to escape her loveless marriage and gain freedoms only men enjoy, but a chance encounter with a ragged, little-known poet named Shakespeare changes everything. They leave plague-ridden London for Italy, where they begin secretly writing comedies. Their Italian idyll, though, cannot last and their collaborative affair comes to a devastating end. Will gains fame and fortune for their plays back in London and years later publishes the sonnets mocking his former muse. Not one to stand by in humiliation, Aemilia takes up her own pen in her defense and in defense of all women. The Dark Lady's Mask gives voice to a real Renaissance woman.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateApr 15, 2016
    ISBN9781520004402
    Unavailable
    The Dark Lady's Mask
    Author

    Mary Sharratt

    MARY SHARRATT, the author of seven critically acclaimed novels, is on a mission to write strong women back into history. Her novels include Daughters of the Witching Hill, the Nautilus Award–winning Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen,The Dark Lady’s Mask: A Novel of Shakespeare’s Muse, and Ecstasy, about the life, loves, and music of Alma Mahler. She is an American who lives in Lancashire, England.  

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    Reviews for The Dark Lady's Mask

    4.5/5

    6 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Aemilia Bassano Lanier is certainly a Renaissance lady who deserves more fame and study than she currently receives - especially when her primarily claim to fame is the possibility that she may have been William Shakespeare's muse. In this novel, Aemilia and Shakespeare are collaborators in some of Shakespeare's early comedies - and lovers who become estranged and fight a war through their poetry and publications for years to come. A good read, and highly recommended for fans of the Tudor era and Shakespeare.
    • 5/5
      This just bursts into life, like a plump and ripe peach...... BRAVO!! The historical afterword helped me savor the depth of her knowledge and research. This was a jewel of a book!
      The Dark Lady’s Mask gives voice to a real Renaissance woman in every sense of the word!! Give us more!!
    • 4/5
      I will admit to not being one who has strong feelings for Shakespeare one way or another. My knowledge of him is really limited but he lived in a time period I find fascinating. I went into this novel with no knowledge of this Dark Lady but a healthy curiosity of what she was all about. I did know that there were rumours about the possibility that Shakespeare had a collaborator or that he didn’t even write the plays attributed to him. I don’t know if this helped or hurt me going into this book.Aemilia Bassano Lanier is remembered because she was the first woman who produced a printed book and proudly called herself poet in a time when many women could not even read. She was the child of a court musician and her family history is a bit muddled. Her father died when she was very young and she was fostered with a wealthy, noble woman and given a very diverse and extensive education.The novel takes the reader through her life and purports that she meets Shakespeare and has an affair with him. They form a writing partnership and even with a limited knowledge of the great man’s works anyone reading will recognize the plays that the two supposedly work on together. Their relationship does not end well and Aemilia goes back to her husband but Shakespeare’s rancor comes back to haunt her life when his Dark Lady Sonnets are published and all who know of their relationship assume they are about her.Aemilia’s life was never dull and Ms. Sharratt takes the tidbits left here and there to craft a fascinating tale about a rare woman. Other than her printed works there is not much else in the historical record but snippets and so much of the book is her supposition of what might have been. The author has a magical way with descriptions and I found myself feeling like I was existing within the story. I love when an author can do that with words. I have only one small complaint about the book and that involves the very beginning. It starts when Aemilia is 7 years old. This is something I see now and again in historical fiction and to me it is very jarring. The 7 year old Aemilia acts more like a teenager than a child. She is far too adult for her age. And it’s far more than the “times.” Once she left her childhood it was fine but a child is a child – not some deep thinking mini adult.
    • 4/5
      I had to laugh at the irony that I finished this book on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and the book ended with his death. Made me chuckle. This book was an intriguing look at the world of Elizabethan England in all its finery and squalor. The plight of women and artists in the time frame came to vivid life in Sharratt’s hands.The author definitely didn’t hold back in her descriptions of Elizabethan England, urban, court life, and sedate country estate. Late 1500s life in Renaissance Venice also was vividly described. I loved all the little details she put in: how life was like in the Jewish ghetto in Venice, different aspects of the alchemical world, the glitter of life in court vs the semi-squalor of its lower class denizens, and the intricacies of patronage for artists and poets of the era.Yet, what really drew me in was how the author explored the plight of women during the times. Given that the book was about the first published female English poet, the story of women in the times isn’t that far-fetched. But by exploring more than just Aemilia’s story, Sharratt brings to light the story of all the women of Elizabethan England. The dependency of one’s place in the world being determined by the men in your life, having a reputation that could be ruined by just a whisper and how life-threatening it was to have no man in your life are all explored in detail. I cringed and wept more than once for the various fates of these women.Sharratt’s amazing talent at characterization is what really carries this story. Aemilia is amazingly human, strong against adversity and thinking on her feet to adapt to ever changing situations. Yet, she can also be carried away in the grand sweep of romance and poetry, losing sight of the real world for the glitter of fantasy. I loved how despite the many falls she experiences in life, she still has the guts to pick herself back up and forge a new path for herself. She’s strong and flawed, just like every woman on the planet.Sharratt also carries over the great characterization skills to her minor characters as well. Shakespeare is both likeable in his poetic glory and hateful in his douche bag misogyny. Alfonse makes you cringe with how pitiful he was, and yet he loved Aemilia with all his heart through all the trials they experienced together. Those are just two great examples of her Sharratt’s secondary characters were as vibrant and life-like as her lead.In a book I enjoyed more than I expected to, I found a great author to delve more into. She tells a great story, makes her characters come to life, and delves into the historical intricacies like few other authors can. This was a great introduction to Aemilia Bassano, Shakespeare’s possible Dark Lady, and to Mary Sharratt as an author. Recommended for lovers of historical fiction and stories of historical women everywhere!Note: Book received for free from publisher via GR giveaway in exchange for an honest review.
    • 5/5
      I greet a new Mary Sharratt novel like I would someone who brought me 5 lbs of See’s Candy and the news that I was no longer a diabetic. In this novel, Sharratt takes on the story of Aemilia Bassano Lanier, the woman who may have been Shakespeare’s Dark Lady; the story is definitely up to the author’s usual standard. Lanier was the first Englishwoman to be a professional, paid, poet. This, and running a short lived school for girls, was how she made her living. The cost of publishing her writing was paid by female patrons. This secured her place in history, whether or not she was Shakespeare’s muse or lover. Sharratt takes Lanier from girlhood to midlife. Her life was not easy; she frequently faced poverty. The laws of the day left women totally at the mercy of the men in their lives, and, of course, everyone was at the mercy of disease. Aemilia was luckier than most; after her father’s death, she was fostered with a rich woman who felt all girls should be well educated. That didn’t save her from becoming mistress to the Queen’s half-brother, or from an arranged marriage to a man who drank too much and lost money constantly, though, or from having her affair with Shakespeare end in an ugly way. She is a very strong woman, though, who tries to keep the reins of her life in her own hands and succeeds as much as any woman of the time could have. In her young days, she frequently dressed in male clothing, hiding her sex to gain the freedom to go where she wanted and do as she wished. As the daughter of a hidden Jew, she also had to hide her very dangerous heritage. I thought this book was wonderful, even though it left me feeling that Shakespeare may have been a bit of a jerk. She gives life to Aemelia in her good times and her bad. Sadly, the other characters are not nearly so well fleshed out; the focus is all on Aemilia. But the people in the story, many of them historic personages, are still enjoyable. My favorites? The three Weir sisters who work for Aemilia- who are herbalists, and perhaps more.
    • 4/5
      I will admit to not being one who has strong feelings for Shakespeare one way or another. My knowledge of him is really limited but he lived in a time period I find fascinating. I went into this novel with no knowledge of this Dark Lady but a healthy curiosity of what she was all about. I did know that there were rumours about the possibility that Shakespeare had a collaborator or that he didn’t even write the plays attributed to him. I don’t know if this helped or hurt me going into this book.Aemilia Bassano Lanier is remembered because she was the first woman who produced a printed book and proudly called herself poet in a time when many women could not even read. She was the child of a court musician and her family history is a bit muddled. Her father died when she was very young and she was fostered with a wealthy, noble woman and given a very diverse and extensive education.The novel takes the reader through her life and purports that she meets Shakespeare and has an affair with him. They form a writing partnership and even with a limited knowledge of the great man’s works anyone reading will recognize the plays that the two supposedly work on together. Their relationship does not end well and Aemilia goes back to her husband but Shakespeare’s rancor comes back to haunt her life when his Dark Lady Sonnets are published and all who know of their relationship assume they are about her.Aemilia’s life was never dull and Ms. Sharratt takes the tidbits left here and there to craft a fascinating tale about a rare woman. Other than her printed works there is not much else in the historical record but snippets and so much of the book is her supposition of what might have been. The author has a magical way with descriptions and I found myself feeling like I was existing within the story. I love when an author can do that with words. I have only one small complaint about the book and that involves the very beginning. It starts when Aemilia is 7 years old. This is something I see now and again in historical fiction and to me it is very jarring. The 7 year old Aemilia acts more like a teenager than a child. She is far too adult for her age. And it’s far more than the “times.” Once she left her childhood it was fine but a child is a child – not some deep thinking mini adult.