The Tutor
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
The Tutor is a sumptuous debut from Andrea Chapin set against the historical intrigue of Shakespearean England.
'Since meeting you, dear lady, I have put quill to page every day. I write and write and write.'
Headstrong young widow Katherine de L'Isle lives a comfortable but solitary existence in her uncle's Lancashire home of Lufanwal Hall until events conspire to shatter her tranquility. First, the family priest is murdered - for his Catholic sympathies - causing her uncle and protector to flee the country. Abandoned by their father figure, the Lufanwal residents struggle to cope and old rivalries fester beneath the surface. Into this midst of this upheaval, there arrives a new schoolmaster from Stratford by the name of William Shakespeare.
Rude, flirtatious and wickedly witty, Will appalls Katherine. Yet the discovery of a mutual love of poetry draws them together and Katherine finds she can never stay away from him for long. First she is seduced by his words, then by his passion. Beneath her excitement, Katherine knows that Will already has a wife - she becomes his muse but will she ever be his true love?
Alone, vulnerable and entangled, Katherine is plunged heart and soul into a passion she cannot control. Meanwhile scandal and intrigue are growing around her family: murder, witchcraft, adultery and high treason loom on the horizon. Worst of all, the more she learns of charming young Will Shakespeare, the more it seems that he is not who he claims to be...
'A sumptuous, page-turning account of William Shakespeare's muse in 1590s England... I was completely captivated. Andrea Chapin is a writer to watch.' - Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife
Andrea Chapin has been an editor at art, movie, theatre and literary magazines, including the Paris Review, Conjunctions, and Lincoln Centre Theatre Review. She has written for various publications including More, Redbook, Town & Country, Self and Martha Stewart Living. Andrea lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chapin's debut novel imagines the shaky romance between a widow and her nephews' tutor, a budding actor and poet named William Shakespeare, against the background of family strife and religious persecution in 16th-century England. After losing her husband and babies, Katharine de L'Isle throws herself into reading and devotes herself to her kindly uncle Sir Edward, who wishes her to be happy and to marry again. When their priest is killed, Sir Edward decides to make his way to France (having already once been imprisoned by the Protestant queen); Katharine, who is feeling vulnerable among her other nutty relatives, initially finds Will irritating, but quickly succumbs to his charms. The sexual tension between them increases when he asks for her help in creating a long poem about Venus and Adonis. Meanwhile, there are signs that Will might be a heartless social climber and not the loving, trustworthy sort that Katharine imagines him to be. Though the beginning is rife with obvious meet-cute and will-they-or-won't-they tropes, Chapin manages to construct a moving account of Katharine's plight. The backdrop of family in-fighting and petty power-seizing also underscores how Sir Edward's departure put Katharine, a single woman of modest means, in a true predicament among her unbalanced relatives. Unfortunately, the heroine makes some head-scratching choices as her family plummets into further mayhem and melodrama moves that pull the story into territory that's more silly than tragic. Despite this, Chapin's inaugural work offers a fun portrait of Shakespeare as a cad.