Book review: Ill Met by Moonlight by Sarah A. Hoyt

Ill Met by Moonlight by Sarah A. Hoyt

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


William Shakespeare, aged 19 or 20, a small-town schoolteacher, comes home one day to find his wife Nan and his infant daughter gone. A small log lies in baby Susannah's crib, giving him the only clue to their whereabouts: they've been snatched by the Fair Folk.

Quicksilver, heir of Oberon and Titania, comes home to find his his parents murdered and his throne usurped by his brother, Sylvanus. He enlists young Will in a scheme of revenge, with Nan as both bait and reward.

Alternating between happenings in the world of Faerie and events in Stratford-upon-Avon, we follow Will's desperate search for Nan, Quicksilver's desperate quest for vengeance, and Nan's indoctrination into the ways of the Fey.

It's possible I might have liked this book better had I read it in one sitting. It's a short thing, less than 300 pages, but even at that it felt too long. None of the chief characters, save Nan, engendered much sympathy. Quicksilver especially annoyed me -- arrogant, duplicitous, selfish, and self-righteous, he had no qualms about using and deceiving a "mere mortal" to his own ends, and I never quite bought the idea that he fell in love with Will. Will, even given some leeway for his youth, seemed much too wishy-washy and easily led. Only Nan seemed to have any strength of character.

Still, on the whole, it's not a bad story, a decent way to spend a few hours if you don't have anything better to read.



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