I have long known the story of how Hamnet inspired his father’s work but to see it brought to the page was beautiful. This book reads as a supernatural thriller, you know what’s going to happen because like Shakespeare’s works the tragedy is at the heart of the play but still you wait to see how it all is going to come together. A beautiful book. I very much enjoyed reading it.

Beautiful, melodic prose and mind numbing detail drag down the narrative transforming what might have been a riveting, moving historical novel into a tedious tale.

Interesting show of what real tragedy is and how grief leads people to turn on each other. The historical context is amazing.

I thought the concept of this book — a story of Shakespeare’s marriage from the perspective of Anne (Agnes) interesting. It’s really Anne’s story and only focuses on their courtship and the birth of their children and the death of Hamnet. But so little happens and there is no suspense because the ending is apparent from the beginning. Just a complete snoozefest.

Excellent from start to finish.

This book enraptured me from the start. The ability to draw in the reader inflicting the pain the joy the suffering the loss and grief as if it were their own. To build characters that have such substantial lives, leaving indelible imprints upon the reader long long after the book has ended leaving the reader with an unsettled melancholy for their old familiar kinships which profoundly evolved into remarkably dynamic and constructed beings whose lives were celebrated cherished and impacted those fortunate souls who had encountered them in the written words borne from the extraordinary exceptional imaginations of the writer.

I cannot think of any novel that affected me as much as Hamnet. There was a point, which those who have read i will identify, when I had to stop to consider the event, before continuing two days later. Agnes/Anne is drawn so richly that she is the equal to her famous (unnamed) husband. Horatio's “now cracks a noble heart…” although not expressed in the text could have been a eulogy for his beloved son.

Great technical execution and writing. Very solid ending. Middle can drag a bit if you don’t love family dramas

So much wordiness about nothing. After all the build up and endless detail I thought the book would go somewhere. But it didn’t.

Life is about loss. The difference between one who drowns and lives beyond grief is the ability to rise above the waves. Keeping oneself distracted with purposeful work helps the body to move forward. Always hopeful to one day be rejoined with our love ones we lost. This book ,with its beautiful language is a revelation and comfort to all who have lost a loved one . Thank you. Catherine M Schulte