NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNERTa?Co NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERTa?CoTa?C?Of all the stories that argue and speculate about Shakespeare?COs life ... here is a novel ... so gorgeously written that it transports you." ?CoThe Boston GlobeEngland, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on. A young Latin tutor?Copenniless and bullied by a violent father?Cofalls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family?COs land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.TaDon?COt miss Maggie O?COFarrell?COs new novel, The Marriage Portrait, coming in September!