If I could give it six stars, I would.

Without doubt my book of the year so far, Fair Rosaline takes the well known play of Romeo and Juliet and looks at it from an entirely new perspective.

And what a perspective it is! Rosaline is Juliet’s cousin, and Romeo’s love prior to Juliet. 

I studied R&J at GCSE and it is the play I know best, having read it in depth, seen various stage productions and thanks to a major crush on Leonardo DiCaprio in the 90s, harboured an obsession with the Baz Luhrmann film. Knowing great chunks of the play by heart did give this extra depth as I recognised lines throughout and it felt like satisfying little Easter eggs, however even if you only know the bare bones of the story, Fair Rosaline is without doubt a cracking read. Familiar enough to sink into, yet jarring enough to be completely compelling.

With characters to root for, new background and an entirely new and much seedier perspective on events, this is a complete ‘untelling’ of everything you think you know, and it’s blinking brilliant!!