Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I usually don't pick historical fiction as my go to genre but I thought I would give this one a go as I have enjoyed some of the authors previous work.

I liked that the story was set in two different timelines, especially with how the POV was presented as it made it easy to follow the story. I have to give the author credit for the amount of research put into this book as you can feel it in the way the story is written.

This book opens up a whole new narrative to the idea that Shakespeare wasn't the original author to all of his work and I'm really glad I was given the opportunity to read this ARC. I will be recommending to all my friends who are fans of historical fiction as it is another great read.

A unique take on the theory that Shakespeare's plays were written by a woman, told in two timelines: Tudor England and modern day New York. Full of Picoult's usual style and elegance, but a bit of a slog to get through at over 500 pages.

This is such an enjoyable read. It’s quite different from the author’s other books and style but still a great read, especially if you love historical fiction. I really liked the premise of the book. What if Shakespeare didn’t write his own plays? What if he was just an intermediary for those who couldn’t publish their own work? This book really makes you think and reflect on what life was like for women in the 15/1600s and about how little has actually changed in the arts world and entertainment industry. All the characters were very well written but I particularly liked the portrayal of the neurodiverse character who I thought was portrayed very realistically and sympathetically rather than your often portrayed rude, difficult odd ball.

I couldn't read this as an ebook for some reason so will get it when it comes out! Sorry! (Leaving a 4 star review to be fair.)

I adore everything Jodi has written, and will continue reading her in the future. But this particular book is not for me. She's an auto purchase author, but the genre of this one is not my usual go to. But if you're a historical fiction fan then this will hit all the high notes for you.
It certainly got me thinking and reevaluating what I thought I knew.

Whilst this book took me a while to get used to the style in which it was written (it cleverly switches from modern day Manhattan to Elizabethan times), once I realised why, I was totally fascinated.
The story is compelling, thought provoking and desperately a story that needs to be told, reflecting Jodi Picoult’s amazing depth of research, cleverly linking the lives of two very different and yet similar women.

What a talent! Through the telling of a story (Emilia Bassano a playwright and poet) within a story, Melina writing a play about the life of Emilia, the reader comes to a deeper understanding of a woman’s life in Elizabethan times.

I have benefitted hugely from reading this, where my preconceptions have been challenged and the importance of identity and bring heard are explored so perceptively. This story will stay with me for a long while, as will this quote
‘THERE ONCE WAS A GIRL WHO BECAME INVISIBLE IN ORDER THAT HER WORDS MAY NOT BE’
I totally recommend this book!

The book explores the possibility that Shakespeare didn't write the plays he was credited for.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It's a dual timeline. One set from the late1500's and one in the present day.

The timeline in the past was amazing. Emilia Bassano had gone through so much. It was so easy to root for her. She'd loved and lost, was sold and rejected, but still she carried on.

She started by rewriting plays for the stage and then went on to write her own plays and then sold them to Shakespeare, who brought them to life on the stage.

Sadly, I didn't like the MC in the present day. I feel I could have skipped it all and then absolutely loved the book. Maybe because the past was so emotional and written so beautifully that the present day didn't stand a chance.

This is not the usual Jodi Picoult book. Thought provoking yes.
‘By Any Other Name’ alternates between the perspectives of Emilia Bassino in Elizabethan England and Melina Green in the present day. I so wanted both characters to be based on real people and I was not disappointed to read that Amelia Lanyer was the first female Jewish poet to be published in England.
There have been many theories about Shakespeare and whether he actually wrote all of his plays and here the author makes a compelling case for the fact he did not. I enjoyed the many Shakespeare references throughout the book and the way they are interweaved into the story.
A strong feminist theme runs through this book.
Thank you to NetGalley, Michael Joseph and Penguin Random House for the advance copy of this book.

Given that I’ve literally just put down the book and want to immediately review it should give you the impression that at the very least my opinion is strong about By Any Other Name.

In fact, I’d possibly rank this book as one of my all-time favourites. I see why some have been thrown by the slight shift in Jodi Picoult’s genre/style, but I’ve always loved her writing and historical books so this was a perfect match for me. Anything with court intrigue, forced marriages, women having to scrape for their lot in life to pave the way for us nowadays: Catnip to me.

Each time the perspective changes between Emilia and Melina I had the sudden sadness of being ripped away from a storyline I was hooked on. And this happened both ways! I could have read two books, each one fully about one of these women. It’s an impressive feat for me, I usually have one perspective that I prefer or just enjoy more, but that wasn’t the case here. How Jodi manages this I’ll never know.

The main message of the book is one of feminism and pointing out how the fact that some women need to hide behind men to be taken seriously and be allowed in the door is still the case today, despite all the progress we’ve made, but it doesn’t always have to be. Women, then and now, deserve to be seen as equals to men and just seen full stop.

It does this with some really poetic imagery and amazingly descriptive scenes. I felt like I was living inside both Emilia and Melina and feeling their struggles and pain as they went through everything. I genuinely teared up at the end, and I don’t do that often with books. This is a book everyone should read and everyone should have a chance to fully embrace the morals behind it.

I can’t really say much more than that.

(But I will)

I loved the characters, even the utterly horrid ones, they felt all like real people to me and all individuals in their own right. Even when I knew a historical figure would die around that time, it still hit me just as hard as Emilia when she heard it for the first time - amazing impact.

The plot wasn’t the fastest I suppose, but for me that just made it even easier to sink in to both lives without being dragged along by a fast-paced storyline.

This book makes me want to create my own art - and stamp my name in capital letters underneath it.

Picoult is always worth reading but this one didn’t hook me the same despite being a very interesting concept and setting.

This is a really interesting and though provoking book written in a dual timeline featuring strong women who in their time were great authors but for different reasons were unable to show their works.

Back in the days that William Shakespeare was becoming famous a young woman who was a talented author but was unable to show anyone her work as she was female is living her life, guided by the men in her life. Wanting and needing more she meets WS and sells him her work, which he produces as his own to great acclaim.

Many years later a female relative of the woman is convinced her predecessor was the rightful author and looks into her story, while struggling still to get published as a female author.

Great writing and a very insightful piece of work, showing the worth of woman and the struggles still faced today due to gender.

Published 10 October 2024. This is a novel in two timelines on of which is the re-imagining of the life of Emilia Bassano/Emilia Lanier who was the first woman to become a published poet in 1611 and who is also, in some circles, believed to be the Dark Lady in Shakespeare's Sonnets and who also, some believe, may have been a writer of his plays. The question of the authorship of Shakespeare's plays is a debate that has thrown up many candidates over the years and is a debate that still continues today. In this novel, in the present day, Melina Green, also a playwright, is an ancestor of Emilia and so writes a play about her life - the second timeline. Both women struggle to get their words on the stage - Emilia because of the conventions of the day and Melina because of the theatre scene where gender and race are hurdles to climb. Emilia uses Shakespeare to get her plays on the stage while Melina asks her friend, Andre - an African-American playwright who is also finding it difficult to break through in the theatre world. It was an interesting idea to weave the two stories together in this way but for me, I found Emilia's story more engaging. The author brings the era to life - there are so many details about the hardships that women found in a time when as one line tells us - it was legal for a husband to beat his wife as long as the stick was not wider than his thumb. Imagine! Emilia is a fighter, a survivor, a passionate lover and a fierce mother. I adored her and wept with her. In contrast, although Melina's struggle to get her play on the stage under her own name was fascinating, I found her to be a much weaker character. I don't think she would have been able to live the life that Emilia did - there doesn't seem to be that strength within in. In my opinion anyway. I enjoyed this - I liked being taken back to Shakespeare's time and finding all the references to plays, to sonnets hidden within. Emilia is a character who could have had a book of her own.

I thank NetGalley and Michael Joseph/Penguin Random House for providing me an ARC copy of this book, which I freely chose to review.
This is not the first book by Jodi Picoult I’ve read, although it has been a long time since I read any of her novels, and it is a totally different reading experience, or almost. Her writing is excellent, and she can make readers share in the feelings and thoughts of her characters and that is still the case here. But rather than being a contemporary story about some controversial or complex topic, this is a novel about two women, one in the present time (we meet Melina Green in 2013 and leave her in 2027) and the other in Elizabethan England (we meet Emilia in 1581 and accompany her until 1645). Apart from the chapters from each of the protagonists’ points of view, we also get some insights into the thoughts of a male character, Jasper Tolle (a New York Times theatre critic), and we read fragments of a play called… By Any Other Name, the play Melina has written about Emilia Bassano, her ancestor, and the first woman to publish a book of poetry in England.
Most people who are interested in classical theatre, Shakespeare in particular, will have heard about the academic debates surrounding the authorship of the plays that have been attributed to him. There are many reasons for that debate, and there have also been different candidates proposed as authors of the plays. In this novel, Picoult shares one of these theories, whilst at the same time creating a fascinating character (based on a real historical figure) and giving her readers a good sense of what living in England as a woman (a woman who was secretly Jewish) at such point was like. Emilia’s story is a tragic one in many ways, but one of the things the narrative does very well is show that her story was not unusual, and other than a few women who had been born in extraordinary circumstances (Queen Elizabeth I, for example), most women didn’t hold any power and were used, abused, ignored or made invisible by the men around them and the society of the time. I had never heard of Emilia Bassano before reading this book, and I was immediately fascinated by her, her eagerness to create, and the way she manages to survive all kinds of traumas and losses.
That part of the story is full of details that bring the era to life for readers, but they never get in the way of the action. She is surrounded by other historical figures, some better known than others (I was particularly fond of Christopher Marlowe, who in this novel becomes Emilia’s friend and a strong supporter of her writing), and she experiences all kinds of turmoil: she loses both parents, is taken as a ward by aristocrats who end up abandoning her, is sold to become a courtesan by her relatives, forced into marriage when she gets pregnant, her husband is violent and regularly abuses her, she has to hide her love for another man and her writing, submitting it under a false name, she has to abort a child by her lover and loses one of her children when still a toddler, she is left penniless on many occasions and has to find ways to support herself… Hers is a life full to the brim, and I found it compelling and moving.
Melina’s story illustrates the hurdles female playwrights face daily, even now. She almost gives up writing when a critic tells her, as a young female writer, that her work is too personal and is of no interest to anybody else (because we all know only men’s lives are of any interest), and she struggles to regain her confidence and submit her work because she does not trust herself. Her best friend, Andre, an African-American, is another playwright, and he also faces prejudices. Despite Melina’s refusal, he sends her play about her ancestor, Emilia Bassano, to a contest, under the name “Mel Green”. When he is mistaken for the playwright, Melina asks him to go along with it and pretend to be the author a bit longer, whilst she waits for the right time to reveal herself without risking the suspension of the play. But, of course, things get complicated.
I also enjoyed the part of the story about Melina, especially her interactions with Andre and Jasper (who, despite his previous negative opinion of Melina’s writing, ends up being quite a nice guy and whose neurodivergence makes him not fit easily in), although the insta-love didn’t totally work for me. I appreciated the arguments about the role of women in the theatre world, now and then, which remains mostly dominated by white men, and also the way it shows how the establishment seems intent on patting themselves on the back for any plays promoting diversity or written by anybody other than ‘the usual suspects’ (be it women, racially diverse, LGBTQ…) but find it difficult to truly level the playing field.
In my opinion, Emilia’s story is more compelling and more gripping, and although Melina’s story works well as a frame for the historical fiction part of the novel, I didn’t feel it was as strong. Emilia’s story is much longer, so those who don’t appreciate it or were expecting a novel much more in Picoult’s usual lines, might not enjoy this one.
I have mentioned the writing, and it is gorgeous. Of course, there are plenty of references to Shakespeare’s sonnets and his plays, and readers who are familiar with his(?) work are likely to enjoy picking up the references as they read (the author lists them all at the end of the novel). Anybody who has a very strong opinion about the authorship of the plays might disagree with the theory exposed here, I am sure, but Picoult makes a rather convincing case, and she also shares some of the sources of her research at the end, so that anybody interested can explore the matter further.
The novel is written in the third person throughout, and I must warn readers that there are some scenes of violence and sex (not the most explicit I’ve read, by any means, but this is not a ‘clean’ novel), so that should be taken into account when deciding to read the book or not. Oh, and don’t expect all to be doom and gloom (although there is plenty of that); there are light, joyful and funny moments, and lots of witty repartee as well.
I enjoyed the ending. It felt like a nice closure for all the characters, and it is neither unexpected not pedestrian.
The author includes a section of acknowledgements that gives a good insight into her process of research (evident through the pages of this novel), and as I’ve said, there is also a list of references to plays, poems, and other works included in the novel, and a bibliography with some of the sources she has studied. Some of the reviews mention an author’s note. I have only read an ARC copy, and it might be that the final version of the book has been slightly changed and something else added, but I can’t comment on that.
In sum, this is a novel that might surprise some of Picoult’s regular readers, but I think most people who love stories centred around women, historical fiction, dual-time stories, and especially those fond of Shakespeare’s plays and intrigued by the different theories about his authorship will enjoy this extraordinary novel.

Typically, I adore Jodi Picoult’s books but this was unfortunately not the one for me. I mean I enjoyed the pacing of it but I feel like it could’ve been so much better than it was.

I really enjoyed this book, more than I was expecting to - and I was expecting to like it! I’m a sucker for historical fiction that reimagines the usual story we’ve been told so I was excited to read By Any Other Name. I didn’t realise that the book consisted of two timelines, one in the modern day and one in the Elizabethan era. I was at first a little disappointed as was excited to sink my teeth to some pure historical fiction but as I made my way through the book I found that I welcomed the addition of the modern element. I liked the way Melinda’s story echoed Emilia’s and in turn how it demonstrated the differences and similarities between their worlds. I also liked seeing how Mel was so passionate about telling Emilia’s story and I felt it really added an extra layer to the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed how Jodi Picot weaved Emilia’s story into the existing Shakespeare lore while also developing her character and this discussion around whether writing without acknowledgment could be enough for Emilia. I would love to read more about the research process for this book as she put across such a compelling argument for Emilia as the true author for many of Shakespeare’s works. I was hoping there would be an author’s note diving into this a bit but alas there was not.

My only small complaint was that I felt like the chapters when Emilia is a child didn’t have as much impact as they might have. She is going through so much at such a young age but I struggled to believe that she was a child. The voice of these chapters didn’t feel distinctive to the voice of the latter chapters when she is an adult and I felt this was a bit of a disservice to impact of her story. This was only really an issue at the start though, I felt like as the book progressed through the rest of Emilia’s life we really got to see her grow as a character and it was great to see how each of her experiences shaped who she was, and how she related it to her writing.

The development of Mel’s story was also interesting as she grappled with similar questions around whether it was enough to have her work out in the world without it being attributed to her, but through a slightly different lens. I really enjoyed her friendship with Andre, it felt very true to life and really helped to flesh out her character. I wasn’t expecting how the discussion around representation within the theatre evolved into a discussion around the different levels of privilege and representation but I enjoyed and felt the conclusion for the modern characters was satisfying.

Overall, this book kept me throughly engaged and I loved the discussion of themes around what authorship means, the importance of art as a vehicle of representation and the way in which it is shaped by the creators’ life experiences. The book itself was also a wonderful discussion starter as I had many great conversations around the premise and how I felt it was being executed.

I am a big fan of Jodi Picoult, she’s very much an auto-buy Author for me, and I also have an interest in Shakespeare so I was very excited to be able to read this one a little early.

I was aware there was discussion in some areas as to whether the man we know as William Shakespeare was actually responsible for the works attributed to him but I hadn’t heard of Emilia Bassano before. Reading this has definitely encouraged me to do some more research in this area as whether she was really the brains behind Shakespeare or not she seems a really interesting person.

The split timeline works really well and makes this kind of a split between historical fiction and a commentary on the treatment of basically anyone in the theatre world who isn’t a white male. The only problem for me with this way of story telling was I felt like there was actually enough material in both sections for two stand alone books rather than forcing the stories to share space. Emilia’s story took up a lot of the page count and I would have liked to have seen Melinda’s story given some more space to be fleshed out a little more.

Picoult’s writing, as always, had been gripped and I was hooked on this one from the first page. That doesn’t mean it was without its issues though. There was an odd error in describing a walk from the New York Public Library to Bryant Park and it took me out of the story for a moment whilst I read and re-read the description thinking I must have misunderstood. Now I’m not so petty as to say that this is a major issue but it did make me wonder about the level of research in other areas if this error had slipped through.

I loved the characterisation, obviously a lot of the characters in Emilia’s part of the story would be based on real people but there will no doubt have been some creative adjustments made along the way. I did feel that giving Melina a name so similar to Emilia’s (on first look I thought it was an anagram) was a little on the nose.

The ending was a little far fetched and schmaltzy for me but overall it was an enjoyable read and has definitely kicked off the research mode in me!

Loved the comparison of the past and present, interesting read that looks as some big issues and keeps you wanting more

The prose in Jodi Picoults ‘By Any Other Name’ alternates between the perspectives of Emilia Bassino in Elizabethan England and Melina Green in the present day. Both playwrights, the two women are held back by their gender, and forced to disguise themselves as male writers. In Emilia’s case, Picoult portrays her as being the writer of many of William Shakespeare’s plays, something that is backed up by previous literary theories.

I have mixed feelings about this novel. I really liked the premise, some of the descriptions of Emilia’s life, and her relationship with other famous characters such as Kit Marlowe, but I found the parallels between her and Melina a bit clumsy. While Melina’s struggles to get recognition were sad, at times she came across as selfish and unlikable and in contrast to someone who was sold to be a consort as soon as her period started (and trained to provide men with satisfaction) her difficulties seemed little in comparison. Ultimately the book was also overly long and a bit slow, meaning that whilst it wasn’t a bad read, it isn’t one I’d rave about.

I was initially sceptical about the premise of this book, as I am a life-long fan of Shakespeare's work. I am still not convinced about the hidden contribution of Emilia, the protagonist of the novel, but I was gradually drawn into the life and struggles of a well drawn, strong character and enjoyed her journey. The counterpoint of Emilia's ancestor in contemporary America was more conventional and, for me, less absorbing, but served to contrast the far less life-threatening trials of a modern female playwright.

I liked much of the period detail and carefully researched background of Shakespearean life, although some of the anachronistic expression (like gotten) sounded a little jarring. I also found the references and parallels to Shakespeare's plays rather obvious and presumptuous, especially the direct quotations (with footnotes at the end), though I suppose they are meant to justify the 'mystery' of the plays' authorship.

On the whole, an interesting and unusual read, and well worth the minor shortfalls to follow the lives of two strong female writers.

I really enjoyed this book! A really interesting premise - the two timelines / points of view combined with Jodi's excellent writing style meant that this book was a real page Turner. I found myself really caring about what happened to both main characters and that's a rare thing! Would definitely recommend.