A revelatory take on the world's best-known love story: Juliet's Nurse combines a prequel to Romeo and Juliet with a fresh vision of the events in the play, all through the eyes of Juliet's ever-present wet nurse, Angelica, who tells a passionate tale of the deepest love in Verona--the love between a grieving woman and her precious milk-daughter. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo has by far the greatest number of lines, followed by Juliet. And who has the third most? Juliet's wet nurse. What did Shakespeare see in her? Lois Leveen's new novel is the vividly imagined, utterly intriguing answer to this question. Angelica is still grieving the loss of her own day-old infant when she must leave her loving husband to enter the household of the wealthy Cappelletti family to care for their newborn baby. Mourning her own daughter, Angelica takes immense comfort in nurturing Juliet, but soon finds herself embedded in the rivalries and jealousies of the Capellettis, where sweet, 10-year-old Tybalt, cousin to Juliet, serves as her one ally. Fourteen years later, as the family's secrets--and the nurse's own deep losses--at last bubble to the surface, five momentous days of love and tragedy destroy a girl, and a family. Juliet's Nurse takes us beyond the tragic ending of Romeo and Juliet into a very different story, revealing the love, loss and resilience that is the heart of human experience.
