A Thrilling Departure: A Short, Piercing, Deeply Moving Novel About The Death Of Shakespeare's 11 Year Old Son Hamnet--a Name Interchangeable With Hamlet In 15th Century Britain--and The Years Leading Up To The Production Of His Great Play. England, 1580. A Young Latin Tutor--penniless, Bullied By A Violent Father--falls In Love With An Extraordinary, Eccentric Young Woman--a Wild Creature Who Walks Her Family's Estate With A Falcon On Her Shoulder And Is Known Throughout The Countryside For Her Unusual Gifts As A Healer. Agnes Understands Plants And Potions Better Than She Does People, But Once She Settles With Her Husband On Henley Street In Stratford She Becomes A Fiercely Protective Mother And A Steadfast, Centrifugal Force In The Life Of Her Young Husband, Whose Gifts As A Writer Are Just Beginning To Awaken When His Beloved Young Son Succumbs To Bubonic Plague. A Luminous Portrait Of A Marriage, A Shattering Evocation Of A Family Ravaged By Grief And Loss, And A Hypnotic Recreation Of The Story That Inspired One Of The Greatest Masterpieces Of All Time, Hamnet Is Mesmerizing, Seductive, Impossible To Put Down--a Magnificent Departure From One Of Our Most Gifted Novelists--