Still Star-Crossed

The taciturn peace that the double suicide of Romeo and Juliet imposed on the citizens of Verona is tentative at the best of times as the tension generated by the long-standing feud between the Montagues and the Capulets continues to permeate the atmosphere - seeping into to everyone’s bones and tainting all that it contacts. Burdened by the responsibility of leadership and desperate to save his city, the young Prince Escalus concludes that the only way to truly squelch this nonsense is to SUCCESSFULLY marry a Montague to a Capulet. Unfortunately, the betrothed – Benvolio and Rosaline – are not the paragon of peace that he had hoped for. However, in banding together to undermine the fate they loathe, the couple not only broker peace and save the city but also discover that they are far more willing than either would have anticipated. This lovely blend of romance and mystery adheres to the spirit of Shakespeare’s writing, if not the letter. Taub breathes new life into the well-traversed world of thirteenth-century Verona as the Bard depicted it by developing the characters of Rosaline and Benvolio and contextualizing them in a setting where the characters of both Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing came of age at approximately the same time thereby allowing her to borrow Don Pedro of Arragon (and his plight) for a clever Deus ex machina. Taub’s tale truly offers something for everyone: for those who have become disillusioned with the original tragedy, it is reinvigorating; for those who have previously found Shakespeare’s writing oblique and impenetrable, it is quite accessible; and for those who fell in love with the original star-crossed lovers as they fell in love with each other, it is heavily laced with allusions that cheekily pay homage.

Still Star-Crossed by Melinda Taub
Secondary
Delacorte Press
342 pp.
Published 2013
978-0-385-74350-1
$16.99
Romance

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