Mark This Book Monday: Juliet by Anne Fortier

Hello, hello, hello! *wipes dust from blog* *sneezes*

Well, it's been a while! I just came back from my last trip to India this Saturday, and I thought that it was indeed about time that I returned to update the blog! I haven't been updating during my vacation cause I was using my Motorola tablet, and though it is awesome to surf the web and comment and things like that... it's way too awkward for me to type blog entries, even more since I'm overly verbose!

So returning to the regular schedule of the blog, it's time to have a new Mark This Book Monday!

Today I want to share with you all Anne Fortier's Juliet , which I am undecided whether to qualify as romantic novel or as an historic one...

Juliet's premise is that the story that our dear old Shakespeare wrote was based on actual events, but distorted and changed by the powers that be, and by the passing of time. There was a real Giulietta and a real Romeo that fell in love and couldn't get married, but unlike in Shakespeare's version is not so much cause both their families were sworn enemies, but more due to political reasons, though there is a mention of two families being in war for the control of the city (which is not Verona, but Sienna). The book mixes the original real story of Romeo & Giulietta and the story of Giulietta's descendants thru her sister, in the present day, when Juliet discovers who she is after the death of her aunt Rose, who had been taking care of her (and her sister) since they lost their parents when they were three.

We keep discovering new things about the original story, and about present day's Juliet story and background with every turn of the page, and Juliet has to make sure that history doesn't repeat itself and her life turn into another tragedy, like that one of the original Giulietta.

It is a very captivating book, with unexpected turns and a very well researched background story. It's the kinda book that despite being not your small novel in size, you simply devour it in a matter of hours! I read it in a pair of days, and that was cause I had to work, and couldn't dedicate as much time to it as I would have liked!

If you like stories with some romance, some history and some mistery, Juliet really IS the book for you!