What a great concept, giving Rosaline her time in the spotlight. The story borrows Shakespeares characters and creates an alternative view to the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet.

Even if you've never studied 'Romeo and Juliet' you will know the plot. The love story between these two characters is always referenced, and yet we forget that before the events of Shakespeare's play Romeo seemed to be in love with Juliet's cousin, Rosaline.
Fair Rosaline focuses on the character of Rosaline, a bold young woman and one who is not averse to taking risks. She has, since childhood, been loved by Tybalt but when we first meet her she is having to bury her beloved mother. Her father then makes the decision that she is to enter a nunnery, so Rosaline is in an emotionally vulnerable state that leaves her open to someone taking advantage.
In this book we see a very different side to Romeo Montague. A serial flatterer, determined to take the maidenhood of many a young woman and then find a way to remove the problem before moving onto his next conquest. We see Rosaline fall for his charms and almost reach the point of marriage, until she is visited by a pregnant maid who also fell for Romeo only to be cruelly abandoned once she has served her purpose.
Rosaline then takes it upon herself to do what she can to help Juliet making the same mistake.
The story doesn't deviate that much, but it was certainly fun to see another side to the characters that we feel we know so well.

When her mother dies, young Rosaline Capulet is told that she must enter a convent. She negotiates a respite, determined to live a little and so gatecrashes a party held by the family's enemies, the Montagues. There Rosaline meets the handsome, older Rmoeo Montague and falls crazily in love. Romeo promises marriage but Rosaline hears rumours and is unsure so breaks it off. Then Romeo turns his eye on her younger cousin, Juliet.
I really loved this book! Solomons has taken a minor character from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and woven a whole story around her. Rosaline has no presence in the original play but here she is pivotal to a complete retelling of the story. Romeo comes across as a predator and Juliet a victim but the voices that are loudest are those of the women of Verona, powerless to the whiles of the men.

Bad Romeo. Bad, bad Romeo

Romeo heads up a paedophile ring in old Verona. Accomplished in grooming and gaslighting, he has a suitably odious accomplice in Friar Lawrence. Romeo seduces the fifteen year old Rosaline Capulet, before moving on to her cousin, the thirteen year old Juliet. But Rosaline has sass, and from a naive girl spurned in the first half of the novel, she strikes back as an avenging angel in the second.

There are some good things here, the clever and witty uses of and quotations from Shakespeare generally work well. Despite the major implausibility of much of the plot, the narrative carries the reader along nicely.

It’s not the first novel that has been based on a character so minor she is virtually invisible. It has been done well in the past, notably, I think, by Ursula Le Guin in her novel Lavinia. Not so great here, Romeo a caricature, Juliet a cypher, most of the other characters one dimensional, Rosaline full of attitude.

As an English teacher of 10 years, I thought I knew everything there was to know about Romeo and Juliet. But in this book - I was proved wrong! Fabulously written, so compelling - a must read!!

A fantastic retelling of Romeo and Juliet from the point of view of Rosaline - the Capulet cousin who came before Juliet. Natasha Solomons highlights in her author's note that this play is far from the romance it is often miscategorised as and Fair Rosaline really explores that. Actions and motives are examined carefully and Rosaline has a far clearer eye than her young cousin.

It is a testament to the quality of Solomons' writing that the story never felt stale or predictable, despite being based on a story that wasn't new when Shakespeare told it. I loved it.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

What if Romeo wasn't really a Romeo?

This is a story of seduction and gaslighting, of power and manipulation. But it is also about women taking back control in a very interesting (and intense) historical setting. Love, family and revenge... I loved it.

This is Romeo and Juliet like you've never seen it before!