Enjoy this video of the week! Filmmaker John Duncan used drones to capture this stunning footage!
Monday, April 25, 2016
Friday, April 22, 2016
Review & Giveaway: The Dark Lady's Mask
The Dark Lady's Mask: A Novel of Shakespeare's Muse by Mary Sharratt
Publication Date: April 19, 2016
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Hardcover, eBook, Audio Book; 416 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Shakespeare in Love meets Shakespeare’s Sister in this novel of England’s first professional woman poet and her collaboration and love affair with William Shakespeare.
London, 1593. Aemilia Bassano Lanier is beautiful and accomplished, but her societal conformity ends there. She frequently cross-dresses to escape her loveless marriage and to gain freedoms only men enjoy, but a chance encounter with a ragged, little-known poet named Shakespeare changes everything.
Aemilia grabs at the chance to pursue her long-held dream of writing and the two outsiders strike up a literary bargain. They leave plague-ridden London for Italy, where they begin secretly writing comedies together and where Will falls in love with the beautiful country — and with Aemilia, his Dark Lady. 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 in every sense of the word.
MY REVIEW:
This was a first of Mary Sharratt's books that I've read, and I can say quite enthusiastically that I am now a fan. The narrative language in the book was beautiful and poetic -- not to mention that there are actual poem's throughout. The banter witty, the storyline entertaining. There was a good mix of emotions throughout. Sadness, anger, laughter, love, and Ms. Sharratt did an excellent job of eliciting those emotions from me.
We first meet Aemilia as a young girl, trying to figure out where she belongs in her world (an ironic that later on she finds the place she thought she belonged the most is actually the place she feels most out of place). Her relationship with her father is loving and warm, as it appears at first to be with her mother and sister. When her sister marries, and the events that follow, sets a precedent for Aemilia on what a relationship should and shouldn't be, and it has a profound impact on many of the decisions that she makes. If not for her cousin Jasper sneaking her out of the house, dressed as a boy, to see her father perform in a play, and her father introducing her to the famous female poet at court, I don't think Aemilia would have felt empowered enough to go about her journey and reach for her dreams. She was hiding behind a mask long before she ever met Shakespeare. She's a woman not only trying to live in a man's world, but trying to break into a man's profession. It is not enough to be a famous poet, she wants to be a playwright, and luckily, her friendship with Shakespeare, initially, helps get her what she want, even if it is a veiled execution. (And I have to add, but the way, that I thought it quite hilarious Shakepeare's border in the beginning calls him Master Shakestaff. If that isn't an insult! There are so many little funny quips in this book!). But not all good things last... Fortunately for us, Aemilia is a driven, determined and risk taking woman. She was a feminist before her time--although I can't say she's the first, as for the years of her formative life she was exposed to one of the most powerful feminists of all time--Elizabeth I.
I was impressed with how smoothly and seamlessly Ms. Sharratt brought all the players into each other's world. About 1/3 of the way into the book, I was skipping to the back to read the author's note, because I was convinced that this was a true story, and I so very much wanted it to be. Her grasp of language, scenery, history, was amazing. I can't say enough good things about this book.
I highly recommend you add it to your TO BE READ list, because it was fantastic. It was a fast-paced read that I couldn't put down.
**Leave a comment for your chance to win a paperback copy of this book! Open to US residents only.**
Amazon (Kindle) | Amazon (Hardcover) | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble
Advance Praise
“An exquisite portrait of a Renaissance woman pursuing her
artistic destiny in England and Italy, who may — or may not — be Shakespeare’s
Dark Lady.”—
MARGARET GEORGE, internationally bestselling
author of Elizabeth I
“Perfectly chosen details and masterful characterization
bring to life this swiftly moving, elegant story. As atmospheric and compelling
as it is wise, The Dark Lady’s Mask is a gem not to be missed.”—
LYNN CULLEN, bestselling author of Mrs. Poe
and Twain’s End
“Mary Sharratt’s enchanting new novel, The Dark Lady’s Mask,
is a richly imagined, intensely romantic and meticulously researched homage to
lauded poet, Aemilia Bassano Lanyer, an accomplished woman of letters who many
believe to be Shakespeare’s Eternal Muse. Sharratt unfolds a captivating tale,
a compelling ‘what if ’ scenario, of a secret union that fed the creative fires
of England’s greatest poet and playwright.”—
KATHLEEN KENT, bestselling author of The
Heretic’s Daughter
“Mary Sharratt is a magician. This novel transports the
reader to Elizabethan England with a tale of the bard and his love that is
nothing short of amazing. Absorbing, emotional, historically fascinating. A
work of marvelous ingenuity!”— M.J. ROSE, New York Times bestselling author of The
Witch of Painted
Sorrows
“I enjoyed this exciting fantasy of Shakespeare’s ‘dark
lady.’ There was adventure, betrayal, resilience, and above all, the fun notion
that Shakespeare might have had far more than a muse to help him create his
wonderful plays.”—KARLEEN KOEN, bestselling author of Dark Angels and
Before Versailles
“Through the story of Aemilia Bassano, a talented musician
and poet, Mary Sharratt deftly tackles issues of religious and gender
inequality in a time of brutal conformity. The Dark Lady’s Mask beautifully
depicts the exhilaration and pitfalls of subterfuge, a gifted woman’s
precarious reliance on the desires of powerful men, and the toll paid by
unrecognized artistic collaborators. Resonant and moving.”—MITCHELL JAMES KAPLAN, author of By Fire, By Water
“In The Dark Lady’s Mask, Mary Sharratt seduces us with a
most tantalizing scenario —that the bold, cross-dressing poet and feminist
writer Aemilia Bassano is Shakespeare’s mysterious muse, the Dark Lady.
Romantic, heart-breaking, and rich in vivid historical detail and teeming
Elizabethan life, the novel forms an elegant tapestry of the complexities,
joys, and sorrows of being both a female and an artist.”—KAREN ESSEX, author of Leonardo’s Swans and Dracula in
Love
“Mary Sharratt has created an enchanting Elizabethan
heroine, a musician, the orphaned daughter of a Jewish Italian refugee who must
hide her heritage for her safety. Taken up by powerful men for her beauty,
Amelia has wit and daring and poetry inside her that will make her a match for
young Will Shakespeare himself and yet she must hide behind many masks to
survive in a world where women have as much talent as men but little power.”—
STEPHANIE COWELL, author of Claude &
Camille: A Novel of Monet
“Prepare to be swept away by Mary Sharratt’s latest foray
into historical fiction. Inspired by the true story of poet, Aemilia Bassano,
THE DARK LADY’S MASK explores her relationship with William Shakespeare. Richly
detailed and well researched, this lush tale brings Aemilia out of the shadows
of history and let’s her emerge as one of the founding mothers of literature.
Drama, intrigue, and romance will have readers racing through this brilliant
celebration of the muse.”— PAMELA KLINGER-HORN, Sales & Outreach Coordinator,
Excelsior Bay Books
About the Author
MARY SHARRATT is an American writer who has lived in the Pendle region of Lancashire, England, for the past seven years. The author of the critically acclaimed novels Summit Avenue, The Real Minerva, and The Vanishing Point, Sharratt is also the co-editor of the subversive fiction anthology Bitch Lit, a celebration of female antiheroes, strong women who break all the rules.Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
Blog Tour Schedule
Tuesday, April 19Review & Giveaway at Unshelfish
Review at Oh, for the Hook of a Book!
Wednesday, April 20
Review at A Bookish Affair
Interview at Oh, for the Hook of a Book!
Excerpt & Giveaway at A Literary Vacation
Thursday, April 21
Review at A Book Drunkard
Guest Post at A Bookish Affair
Interview at Books and Benches
Friday, April 22
Review & Giveaway at History Undressed
Monday, April 25
Review at Seize the Words: Books in Review
Tuesday, April 26
Review at With Her Nose Stuck In A Book
Guest Post & Giveaway at Let Them Read Books
Wednesday, April 27
Review at Ageless Pages Reviews
Thursday, April 28
Review at Just One More Chapter
Friday, April 29
Review at A Chick Who Reads
Saturday, April 30
Review at Queen of All She Reads
Monday, May 2
Review at Flashlight Commentary
Review at Cynthia Robertson, writer
Tuesday, May 3
Interview at Flashlight Commentary
Wednesday, May 4
Review at So Many Books, So Little Time
Thursday, May 5
Excerpt & Giveaway at Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More
Friday, May 6
Review at Book Nerd
Monday, May 9
Review at A Dream within a Dream
Tuesday, May 10
Character Interview at Boom Baby Reviews
Wednesday, May 11
Review at Puddletown Reviews
Thursday, May 12
Review & Giveaway at View from the Birdhouse
Friday, May 13
Review at First Impressions Reviews
Excerpt at Layered Pages
Monday, May 16
Review at A Book Geek
Tuesday, May 17
Giveaway at Passages to the Past
Wednesday, May 18
Review at History From a Woman's Perspective
Thursday, May 19
Review & Giveaway at One Book Shy of a Full Shelf
Friday, May 20
Review at Broken Teepee
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Bold...Brilliant...Brave... Heroines Throughout History: ACTRESS LAURA KEENE by Tara Kingston
Welcome back to History Undressed our regular third Tuesday guest blogger, Tara Kingston! Today she's written another Bold, Brilliant and Brave heroine! And actress! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
About The Author:
Bold...Brilliant...Brave...
Heroines
Throughout History
ACTRESS
LAURA KEENE
by Tara Kingston
Greetings! I’m Tara Kingston, historical romance author and lover of all
things Victorian. I’m fascinated by history through the ages, especially the
bold, brilliant women who helped shape our world, and I’m delighted to be a monthly
contributor to History Undressed. I’ll be sharing facts about daring women
through history—some famous, some not so well-known, but all remarkable with
their own unique contributions. Today, I’m taking a look at actress Laura
Keene, a witness to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Our American Cousin…a rather bland
title for a comedic stage play that has been forever connected to one of the
most infamous acts in American history, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
The star of that play, Laura Keene, is perhaps best known for her performance
in that play and the comfort she may have offered the stricken President after
he suffered his mortal wound, but she made her mark on the theater world long before
that tragic night, becoming a powerful theater manager in New York during the
Victorian era.
~ Born in England on July 20, 1826, the former Mary Frances Moss was a
young mother of two daughters when her husband, a former British Army officer,
was convicted of a crime and reportedly sent to Australia on a convict ship. On
her own and without funds, she followed the footsteps of her aunt, British
actress Elizabeth Yates and embarked upon a career as an actress.
~ Changing her name to Laura Keene, she made her professional debut in
London in 1851. Other rolls followed, and a year later, she traveled to America
to become the leading lady of a stock company at Wallack’s Theater in New York.
After little more than a year with at Wallack’s, Laura Keene left the stock
company and leased a Baltimore theater for her performances, then traveled to
California and Australia as a touring performer.
~ Laura Keene toured in Australia with Edwin Booth, brother of assassin
John Wilkes Booth.
~Returning to New York in 1855, she leased the Metropolitan Theater,
renaming it Laura Keene’s Varieties and serving as manager, director, and star,
becoming the first female American theater manager. The following year, she
oversaw construction of her own theater. Laura Keene’s Theater opened on
November 18, 1856, and it was here that the play Our American Cousin made its
debut in 1858.
~ After President Lincoln was shot by assassin John Wilkes Booth, legend
has it that Laura Keene offered comfort to the wounded man, cradling his head
on her lap, thereby staining her dress with his blood.
Sources:
http://www.biography.com/people/laura-keene-9361736
All photographs are in the
public domain.
Harvard Theatre Collection Image of Laura Keene source: TS 939.5.3,
Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University
About The Author:
Award-winning author Tara Kingston writes historical romance laced with intrigue, danger, and adventures of the heart. A Southern belle-out-of-water in a quaint Pennsylvania town, she lives her own love story with her real-life hero in a cozy Victorian. The mother of two sons, Tara's a former librarian whose love of books is evident in her popping-at-the-seams bookcases. It goes without saying that Tara's husband is thankful for the invention of digital books, thereby eliminating the need for yet another set of shelves. When she's not writing, reading, or burning dinner, Tara enjoys cycling, hiking, and cheering on her favorite football team.
Connect with Tara at www.tarakingston.com and on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTaraKingston
In a world where a man’s loyalty doesn’t depend on the color of a uniform, danger, intrigue, and passion are facts of life for the men and women of Tara’s Secrets & Spies series, historical romances set against the backdrop of the Civil War.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
The First Woman Hung by the US Government by Susan Higginbotham
Welcome to History Undressed, historical fiction author, Susan Higginbotham! She's written us a fabulous post on Mary Surratt, who is featured in her new novel, Hanging Mary!
On July 7,
1865, Mary Surratt achieved a dubious distinction: becoming the first woman to
be hanged by the United States government.
In 1862,
John Surratt suddenly died, leaving Mary Surratt heavily in debt but with two
properties: the tavern and a house on H Street in Washington. When Maryland
adopted a constitutional provision in 1864 freeing that state's slaves, Mary
decided to lease the tavern and move into the H Street house herself. There,
she would take in boarders--a respectable and common activity for those in need
of extra income.
 |
| Mary Surratt |
Nothing
about Mary Surratt's past marked her as a likely candidate for the hangman.
Born in 1823 to Archibald and Elizabeth Jenkins to a farming family in Prince
George's County, Maryland, Mary was sent
to the Catholic-run Academy for Young Ladies across the Potomac River in
Alexandria, Virginia. So impressed was young Mary by those who taught her that
she converted to Catholicism, taking the name of Maria Eugenia Jenkins.
In 1840, at
age seventeen, Mary wed John Harrison Surratt, who was ten years older and had
been adopted by a prosperous family. The couple had three children: Isaac,
Anna, and John Jr.
A fire
destroyed the couple's home in 1851. Instead of rebuilding, John Sr. elected to construct a tavern in Prince George's
County as a stopping place for those coming to and from nearby Washington, D.C.
Not only would his decision prove disastrous to Mary in the long run,
tavern-keeping was the worst possible vocation for John, an alcoholic who now
could spend as much time behind his bar as he pleased.
As John's
drinking grew worse, Mary began to despair of the influence it and the
atmosphere of the tavern were having on their three children. With the
assistance of various priests who arranged for reduced tuition, she managed to
send them to Catholic boarding schools. One of the priests whose help she
enlisted was the Italian-born Rev. Joseph Maria Finotti. As priest and
parishioner, he and Mary had become so close that gossip began to circulate.
Father Finotti was transferred to
Massachusetts, although Mary continued to write to him occasionally, confiding
in him about her husband's drunken conduct and her concern for her children.
In 1860,
the talk in John Surratt's bar would have centered around the likelihood of
civil war, and the upcoming presidential election. One of the polling places in
Prince George's County was the Surratt tavern. When the votes were counted on
Election Day, not a single one was for Abraham Lincoln.
When war
broke out the following year, Isaac, Mary's oldest son, joined the Confederate
army. He was not an anomaly: although Maryland stayed within the union, many of
its citizens sided with the South, and Prince George's County and the rest of
southern Maryland were particularly pro-Confederate. Soon the Surratt tavern
became known as a "safe house" for those engaged in running the
blockade between North and South. Because the tavern served as a post office as
well--giving the small crossroads its name of Surrattsville--it could also
serve as a drop for clandestine mail.
 |
| Mary's H Street Boarding House |
Mary's
younger children, Anna and John, went to Washington with her. The latter was
not around much, for he had begun to carry clandestine mail from North to
South. Soon the boarders came. Like their landlady, they were ordinary,
middle-class people: a classmate of John Surratt's who worked as a clerk for
the War Department, a young lady straight out of boarding school, a Catholic
schoolgirl, and a married couple and their two children. Just a few months
later, some of them would be in prison, and one would be the star witness at
the trial of the century.
During the
rest of 1864, life went on in the boardinghouse just as it did in the many
other boardinghouses that dotted wartime Washington. Then, early in 1865, John
Surratt brought home a new acquaintance: the actor John Wilkes Booth, the
heartthrob of his day. Soon Booth was stopping by the boardinghouse regularly.
Sometimes he would sit in the parlor and converse with the ladies; other times
he would confer with John Surratt privately. Often he visited even when John
Surratt was away from home.
Around the
same time Booth began frequenting the boardinghouse, a stream of odd guests
began to appear, staying for only a few nights at a time. One man came twice,
calling himself Mr. Wood on the first occasion and Mr. Payne on the second.
Another, whose German surname no one could pronounce, was scruffy and
disreputable looking. A lady guest kept her face shielded by a veil. One
boarder, John Surratt's school chum Louis Weichmann, began to wonder just what
was going on--and he began to wonder even more when, one day in March, John
Surratt, Booth, and Payne, agitated and waving weapons about, stormed into the
room Weichmann shared with Surratt, then abruptly adjourned to the privacy of
the attic.
In fact,
the men were plotting the kidnapping of President Lincoln. Their scheme failed,
but the next month, on April 14, 1865, Booth changed history with a single
derringer shot at Ford's Theater. At about the same time, just blocks away, a
powerfully built man forced his way into the home of the Secretary of State,
William Seward, who was recovering from a carriage accident, and attacked him
in his bed.
Within
hours of the assassination and the assault on Seward (who survived), police,
tipped off that Booth had spent a lot of time at H Street, turned up at Mary
Surratt's boardinghouse. They searched the house but left after finding no sign
of Booth or John Surratt, who was suspected of the assault on Seward. By the
late evening of April 17, however, military authorities had acquired more
evidence. They again came to the boardinghouse. This time, they took Mary and all
those staying with her at the time into custody. As the party awaited
transportation to Washington's military headquarters, a man in grubby but
well-made clothes turned up at the door with the unlikely excuse that he had
come to dig a ditch for Mary the following morning. Asked to identify him, Mary
swore she had never seen him before. In fact, she had seen him several times:
he was the Mr. Payne who had stayed at her house just a month before. He was
also, Seward's servant soon confirmed, the man who had assaulted the Secretary
of State.
 |
|
The building in which her
trial was held,
in what is now Fort McNair army base.
|
By the time
federal authorities caught and killed Booth in Virginia, Mary, Payne (whose
actual name was Lewis Powell), and six others had been identified as his
co-conspirators. While the evidence against Powell was ironclad, the cases
against some of his codefendants were weaker, and it was decided to try the
eight before a military commission (which did not require a unanimous verdict
to convict) instead of in a civilian court.
The trial
began in May 1865. The chief witnesses against Mary were her former boarder,
Lewis Weichmann, and her tenant at her Maryland tavern, John Lloyd. They
testified to two particularly damning incidents: on April 11, three days before
the assassination, Weichmann had driven Mary to her tavern, ostensibly for Mary
to meet with a man who owed her money. On the way, they met Lloyd, to whom Mary
gave a message: to have some "shooting irons" ready for a party who
would soon call for them. Worse, on the day of the assassination itself, Mary
had received a visit from Booth. Having heard that she was going to the tavern
again, he had given her a package to hand to Lloyd, along with a message: to
have the guns ready, along with some whiskey, as they would be called for that
very evening. Indeed, Booth and his companion, a David Herold, did turn up at
the tavern that evening and called for the guns and whiskey, as well as the
package, which contained a field glass. Also weighing against Mary was her
suspicious claim not to have recognized Powell, who had stayed at her own
house.
Neither
Lloyd nor Weichmann was an ideal witness, however. By all accounts, Lloyd was a
heavy drinker who had been drunk when Mary saw him that fatal Good Friday,
though how incapacitated he had been was debatable. Weichmann, though sober and
steady, was compromised himself. He had been close friends with John Surratt
and had got on well with another defendant, George Atzerodt. One witness
claimed that he had shared War Department records with John Surratt and his
Confederate friends, and John Surratt later insisted that Weichmann had wanted
to join the conspiracy but was disqualified because he could neither ride a
horse nor shoot a gun. Some believed that had Weichmann not testified so freely
against his landlady, he would have been on trial himself.
 |
|
Mary's tombstone in
Mt. Olivet
Cemetery
in Washington, D.C
|
For all of
their shortcomings, however, both witnesses were enough to convince a majority
of the commissioners that Mary Surratt was guilty of conspiring to murder the
President. Along with Powell, Atzerodt, and Herold, she went to the gallows on
a brutally hot day in July, protesting her innocence to the end.
John
Surratt, who had been on a mission for the Confederacy at the time of the
assassination and who had gone into hiding upon learning that he was a suspect,
was eventually captured and tried in 1867 by a civilian jury, which was unable to agree on a verdict.
An attempt at retrying him failed for technical reasons, and John went free. Though
after concluding an ill-received lecture tour, he largely kept silent on the
topic of his mother, John gave vent to his feelings on one occasion. Faced with
a routine question on an insurance application about how his mother died, he
bitterly wrote, "She was murdered by the United States government."
For my own
thoughts on Mary Surratt's guilt or innocence, please read my new historical
novel, Hanging Mary, told by Mary and
by her young boarder, Nora Fitzpatrick.
Check out Ms. Higginbotham's newest novel, Hanging Mary!
The untold story of
Lincoln's Assassination
1864, Washington City. One
has to be careful with talk of secession, of Confederate whispers falling on
Northern ears. Better to speak only when in the company of the trustworthy.
Like Mrs. Surratt.
A widow who runs a small
boardinghouse on H Street, Mary Surratt isn't half as committed to the cause as
her son, Johnny. If he's not delivering messages or escorting veiled spies,
he's invited home men like John Wilkes Booth, the actor who is even more
charming in person than he is on the stage.
But when President Lincoln
is killed, the question of what Mary knew becomes more important than anything
else. Was she a cold-blooded accomplice? Just how far would she go to help her
son?
Based on the true case of
Mary Surratt, Hanging Mary reveals the untold story of those on the
other side of the assassin's gun.
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