"Ack! Loved it! Classic whodunit with a spunky Watson-y side kick main character, and a perfectly spiky Miranda Priestly-esque female Sherlock in the role of detective. Well-written, solid plot with just the right amount of clues, none of this deus ex machina nonsense. So good!! Bravo!!"

"The title caught my attention, but the intriguing mystery kept me reading.

The dynamic between the two main characters was very interesting - Mentor/Protege, Good cop/Bad cop, Boomer/Gen Z.

The engrossing mystery of whether a wealthy woman committed suicide or was murdered had several plausible suspects, lots of red herrings, and intriguing motives.
This family has secrets and the world’s greatest detective and her just okay assistant will get to the bottom of it all.

Very entertaining mystery with great series potential.

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"

"This novel ticks off every ingredient of a fabulous reading experience: beautifully realized characters, fantastic research that does not flaunt itself but rather is buried within the story itself, incredibly well-developed plots in both narratives (it takes place in 21st Century America and 16th Century England), a terrific sense of place, perfect pacing, believable dialogue in both periods of time...Essentially, you name it and the author has managed to do it.

The author proposes the "unthinkable": that William Shakespeare did not write either the sonnets or the plays that have been attributed to him for the last 400+ years. Indeed, she offers a stunning alternative to the Bard: Emilia Bassano who, in the 1980s, Shakespearean scholar A.L. Rowse declared was the "dark lady of the sonnets," with much fanfare, it must be said. Picoult has done her research with regard to the otherwise elusive Mr. Shakespeare. She fills both narratives with tantalizing facts and details that are hard to refute. Indeed, by the end of the novel, one conclusion is practically inarguable: whoever wrote the 37 plays, it probably was not the man from Stratford-upon-Avon. It stabs me in the heart to write that, as a longtime student of Shakespeare, a teacher of Shakespeare, and an audience member whenever and wherever the plays attributed to him are performed. Nonetheless, I have to say that I'll never look at the plays quite the same way henceforth.

What I liked the most about the novel is the idea that a woman might have written the plays and the sonnets because authorship by a woman or by more than one playwright-including a woman-- actually makes sense. How could a man alone create so many unforgettable female characters: Lady Macbeth, Desdemona, her maid Emilia, Portia, Ophelia, Juliet, Beatrice, etc.? Especially how could a man of limited means and less education have done so?

It's as intriguing a question--at least to this reader--as is the fate of the Princes in the Tower. The fact that Picoult raises these questions and that the questions linger speaks more highly of her novel than I ever good. Brava!"