For the most part, I thought Fair Rosaline was an incredibly imaginative and fascinating reworking of a tale as old as time. We're all aware of Romeo and Juliet's story, but before Juliet there was Rosaline.

Rosaline is horrified to learn that her father wants her to enter a nunnery following the death of her mother. He has no purpose for her and Rosaline is given no choice. But she longs to live and love, and so when she meets Romeo, an older and experienced man, she is swept off her feet. Promising her marriage and elopement, she is beguiled.

But cracks soon appear and the blinkers quickly fall.

Romeo sets his sight on Juliet, a young and naive girl - and Rosaline's cousin. She will stop at nothing to prevent another girl being used and discarded.

And so a plan for revenge is made.

And it's here that things became a little laboured. I found the last third of the book a little heavy on extraneous detail and I think it could have moved forward more succinctly. Having said that, the strands of the story did come together and there was a delicious sense of justice. This is women taking back their power and it was awesome to read.

A different take on a retelling, this story follows Rosaline (Juliet’s cousin) and her love story with Romeo. A unique version of the Romeo and Juliet story which I think people will either love or hate. I enjoyed it and like to see different perspectives on stories so this worked for me.

𝗖𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿
its a nice cover, doesnt give anything away!

𝗧𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝘀
dark
feminist
sad

𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀
Ummmm.........

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀
Well i hated everyone.
Every single person.

𝗪𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴
You know what, the writing is not bad. I just absolutely hated the characters and the story

𝗔𝗻𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗜 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗱?
Everything

I struggled with this book, I was looking forward another take on Romeo and Juliet especially as I’d seen & Juliet at the theatre, this seemed great but it was a difficult read and I kept losing interest then coming back to it in between other reads but I’m glad I kept going as the ending was worth it though it did seem to take along time to get there.

<i>Romeo and Juliet</i> is far from my favourite Shakespeare play, but I do like reworkings and sequels in which the women take control of their lives and get to have a suitable happy ending. This novel focuses on the romance between Romeo and Rosaline and its aftermath, following the timeline of the play, as well as previous events alluded to by various of the play’s main characters. The story opens with Rosaline Capulet and her father mourning the death of Rosaline’s mother in an outbreak of the plague and preparing to leave the city for the healthier air of the countryside. Rosaline is horrified to learn of her mother’s dying wish: that she be sent to a nunnery rather than marry. However, she is able to defer that move for a short period of time and resolves to make the most of her last few days of freedom, beginning by sneaking out of the family’s house (disguised as a boy, this being Shakespeare) to attend a ball held by the Montagues – her family’s deadly enemies.

At the ball, Rosaline meets, and is smitten with, Romeo. The two embark on a secret romance and plan to elope. However, Romeo keeps finding excuses to delay their wedding and engages in some other pieces of shitty behaviour. Eventually, Romeo meets Juliet and abandons Rosaline for her younger, fairer cousin. Meanwhile, Rosaline is making some very interesting discoveries about Romeo’s past and about goings-on in the nunnery. She realises she’s had a lucky escape with Romeo and enlists the help of the nuns to save Juliet from the fate of some of Romeo’s past loves.

I really enjoyed the unexpected detective elements of this story and how the various mysteries and secret plans were gradually revealed. Rosaline is smart and resourceful, and I particularly appreciated her cunning in getting Romeo’s friend, the friar, out of the way as part of her strategy to save Juliet. Although the author has said this is intended to take place in a fantasy Verona, as per Shakespeare’s play, I still felt slightly jarred by apparent anachronisms at times. Not my favourite reworking of the play (that honour goes to the musical & Juliet), but still a fun read.

Told through the eyes of Rosaline, Juliets cousin , this wasn’t quite the retelling that I was expecting. Rosaline meets and falls in love with Romeo who in this version is considerably older than her and is quite the ladies man. After the relationship ends and he sets his sights on the even younger Juliet. Rosaline intends to open Juliets eyes to the truth of Romeo and end the relationship. Although there are nods to the original it’s a very different feminist retelling which I found slightly awkward at times as I was not expecting a paedophile ring run by the Friar of which Romeo and many of the men of Verona are members. Initially a slow burn the novel gathers pace in its final third. Did I enjoy it? I’m still on the fence. It was a very novel retelling but I think that it took too many liberties. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read the ARC in return for an honest review.

Ahh, this book was a bit of a mixed bag for me. On one hand, I absolutely struggled reading it. There was some very heavy sexism within this book, that I felt wasn't needed within the story. There was a lot of unnecessary information within this book, that I felt it could have done without. However, the characters where interesting and I did like the overall premise.

Rosaline Capulet has just lost her mother and is about to be sent to live out her days in a convent, in an attempt to enjoy her last few days of freedom she sneaks into a party held by the Montague’s where she is soon under the spell of the charming and handsome Romeo.

I really enjoyed this reimagining of Rosaline’s role in the tragedy of the star struck couple. The writing transported you to a different time and I was immediately remind of Maggie O’Farrell’s most recent work, which is no bad thing! Would highly recommend to those who fancy something a bit different.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as I had hoped. It is well-written and well-researched, but I found it rather long, and I couldn't lose myself in it as I expected.

Another Romeo and Juliet retelling! Color me intrigued. I've read one too many already and yet somehow not enough,

First of all, it definitely feels a bit like a feminist spin on the og story and I'm here for it. This book had a great critique on the sociatal habits of coupling and I loved that. I loved the intricacy of the world in the background and it was made to feel very important and balanced to the story - the plague was such an important and good part!
Romeo was a little bag of d**ks. I live for that. It was a refreshing spin on the story. It was perfectly balanced as well with the actual play lines sprinkled throughout the book and it was very fun to try deciphering if it sounds familiar because it's a play line or I'm just dumb.

Overall, I enjoyed that book and am very interested in what else the author has in store!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Wow, does this book hit hard after the recent revelations about Russell Brand. While the story of Romeo and Juliet has alwasy struck me as melodramatic, I've always assumed (or was told) that both the characters were young. Reframing Romeo as a sexual predator grooming young, vulnerable women is a bold but logical move that makes complete sense given the patriarchal society of both the time of the story and of Shakespeare. While the prose felt a bit repetitive at times, the narrative was strong and Rosaline was a great protagonist. Some rewrites of stories feel a bit gratuitous but this one was totally worth retelling.

a retelling of Romeo and Juliette from another perspective was ambitious, the author did an excellent job.

Rosaline was well less than a side character in the play and I was drawn to this as I had to complete an English Literature exam on this so I felt like I have a bit more knowledge on this than say a retelling of Hamlet or Twelfth Knight.

Rosaline is a very well-rounded character who is desperate to try and save her cousin from Romeo who is for lack of a better word (or not swearing) a sleezebag.

It was really well written and actually makes me want to read and watch Romeo and Juliette again (the Baz Lurhman version)

This was another amazing retelling of a classic! I really enjoyed it being from an alternative POV to the usual Romeo and Juliet tale, it definitely made it such a unique take on Romeo and Juliet!

Alternative histories or exploring the 'what ifs' always appeal to me and after studying Shakespeare in some detail I was both nervous and intrigued by this book.
It is often forgotten that at the start of Romeo and Juliet Romeo is smitten by Rosaline (conveniently Juliet's cousin) and the florid words later aimed at Juliet are initially for Rosaline - a hint that Romeo is perhaps not the most suitable partner...

In this book Solomons takes Romeo's fickle character further and makes him a much older man who is fixated on younger women - he's not quite a paedophile but definitely a predator and to me this worked well. The retelling of the play with this lens, and from Rosaline's view point was excellent. I was slightly less convinced by some of the invented plot line but the actions were mostly in keeping with the period the play is imagined to exist in so didn't jar too much.
As Shakespeare borrowed the idea for Romeo and Juliet from an earlier source it seems apt that his work is now being reworked and overall I did enjoy the book.

I am a sucker for a good retelling and this was exceptional! What a beautifully written story, Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

Thank you so much to Bonnier Books for the eARC of 'Fair Rosaline'!

I was absolutely hooked by this retelling of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy, centred on a character who is only ever spoken about in the play, but never actually given any lines. Here, Natasha Solomons gives her the narrative perspective, and it's a treat to be immersed in Rosaline's brutally beautiful Verona.

It's evident that woman-centred retellings have seen a boom in popularity over the past decade, and it's refreshing to see this trend extend beyond Greek mythology and interrogate the stories we continue to tell ourselves. Natasha Solomons' Rosaline is fierce and determined to carve out a future for herself beyond her family's demands that she enter a nunnery. The love she had for her family – particularly Juliet and Tybalt – was a highlight for me, balancing her resentment of the patriarchal status quo with a desire for those she loves to be well. The second half of the novel, after she becomes more suspect of Romeo, was so tense and it kept me reading late into the night.

The way Solomons weaves in lines and scenes from Shakespeare's original is so cleverly executed, with some of the play's most familiar lines being cast in a completely different light in the span of a sentence. Shakespearean and modern dialogue blend together almost seamlessly, creating a world that feels at once removed from ours and utterly real, sweltering in its July heat. Solomons' descriptions, from the domestic warmth of home to the crypts beneath the city, are utterly absorbing.

I loved the portrayal of the characters we know from the play, mainly Juliet and Tybalt – both of them gained more depth, and their relationships to Rosaline made for some of my favourite scenes. My heart ached for Juliet and how her naïveté was exploited by both her family and society around her, especially when Rosaline had gone through the same. Solomons perfectly captures the pain and helplessness of being a woman in a sexist world and realising how limited your abilities to protect those who come after you can be.

A retelling that I will be recommending (with the caveat to check the TWs because Solomons doesn't shy away from the predatory aspects of Romeo and Juliet) for a long time!

I was drawn to this retelling of Romeo and Juliet. It’s told from the perspective of Juliet’s cousin Rosaline who at the start of the play Romeo declares himself to be in love with.

I did almost DNF this book, as the author has made Romeo a greying older, yet charming, man and I think most readers will agree that he is at most in his early 20s. This didn’t sit right with me and made it harder for me to understand Rosaline’s love for him also the book didn’t need it for the story to still work.

Once the book reached the part where the play actually starts it really picks-up and it was interesting to see how she had weaved this version of events around what happens in the play.

It then became a really good read, that was hard to put down, and the type of story that young women need to read. It’s a nice antidote to all of those troubling relationships that you often see being accepted as ‘normal’ in romance books.

So it went from almost DNF to one I’d happily recommend others to read. This is why I rarely DNF, so many books come good in the end.

The blurb describes Fair Rosaline as “a powerful untelling of Shakespeare’s best known tale.”
Romeo meets Juliet at a ball, they fall in love and marry in secret. A fight between members of the warring families ensues which sees Romeo banished from Verona. There’s even a sleeping potion that fakes death.
Sound familiar? Yes, it would appear to be the story of Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, just told from Rosaline’s perspective. Except it’s not. Not really. What we have is Romeo as a lothario with a string of young women and girls, Rosaline amongst them, cast aside and lying in his wake. For me, it didn’t seem that Romeo loved Juliet, and only Juliet. He loves Juliet as much as he loves any of the other pretty girls he’s loved, in that moment. But does he love only her? I’m not sure.
I enjoyed this book in its own right rather than a retelling/untelling of a Shakespearian play, though one thing disturbed me. While Shakespeare never actually says how old Romeo is, he says, “Upon whose tender chin, as yet, no manlike beard there grew” which suggests a boy, rather than a man. Experts like Arthur Brooke and William Painter put Romeo somewhere between 20 and 25. In Fair Rosaline, Romeo is 30, which, given that Juliet is only 13, made for uncomfortable reading.
Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Really enjoyed this one! I’m a sucker for a retelling of anything, but specifically Shakespeare plays. The character of Rosaline is one I’ve always found interesting, and this just confirmed I was right to feel that way.

Would definitely read more from this author.

Fair Rosaline is a sublime retelling of Romeo and Juliet - or, I should say, Romeo and Rosaline.

At the start of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and his friends are seen laughing and joking about Rosaline who has been sent to a nunnery. Here, Rosaline gets a chance to tell her side of the story, and she isn’t the silly girl that the Montagues would have us believe. She’s passionate, intelligent, musical, literate, and she absolutely doesn’t want to spend her life in a convent. So she manages to extract 10 days of freedom from her grieving father (her mother has died in the recent plague) and she intends to live them to the max.

Her first, and probably most life-changing act, is to go to a big masked ball held at the Montagues home. There she meets a very charming Romeo. But he’s not like the young boy we meet in Shakespeare’s play. This Romeo is much older and knows exactly what he’s doing. This Romeo is a serial womaniser who likes his women to be girls.

I hated him quite early on, he’s so well written. Romeo is manipulative, charming and a thief of both material goods and young girls’ innocence.

The way this is all written is frankly gorgeous. The language is reminiscent of Shakespeare (except more accessible!) with a fair few phrases borrowed from his original prose.

I could’ve read this all day. Absolutely beautiful. And yes, highly recommended, even if you just want to see Romeo get his comeuppance.