Thanks to @aaknopf for the free book - I read Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell this past week while on a mini vacation in the mountains. I don’t normally really like historical fiction, but I love Maggie O’Farrell, so I wanted to read this anyway. I’m so glad I did, I loved it!

Something about O’Farrell’s writing gets me invested right away, even if I know the outcome, and in this case, we know the outcome from the beginning: a husband and wife, Shakespeare and Agnes, have three children - Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet dies, and a few years later, Shakespeare writes a tragedy, Hamlet. Hamnet and Hamlet are the same name, interchangeable.

This was one of those books that had me googling everything about the time period - late 1500s/early 1600s England, all the towns that were named, the old London Bridge (did you know there were buildings and vendors ON the bridge?!), falconry, what is a kestrel, who WAS Shakespeare, really, and of course, the plague.

If you are like me, and you feel meh about historical fiction, I’d still give this one a shot. A favorite of the year for me, for sure!