Author(s): Carol Goodman

Fiction

As an undergraduate, Renaissance poetry lecturer Dr Rose Asher spent a year in Tuscany at the villa La Civetta ? once the home of poet, Ginevra de Laura, who, according to local legend, was the infamous 'dark lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets, and the great love of his life. When Rose's most gifted student, Robin Weiss, dies in mysterious circumstances, Rose finds herself reluctantly agreeing to return to La Civetta in an attempt to find answers. The screenplay Robin wrote just before his death controversially suggested that the love affair between Shakespeare and his 'dark lady' was conducted on Italian soil. It has garnered Hollywood interest and much professional rivalry among Rose's academic colleagues ? who are all intent on finding out the truth. But if Robin had indeed discovered proof of Shakespeare's connections to La Civetta, was it really a literary coup worth killing for?