• Readers have always been fascinated by Shakespeare. As with the movie, Shakespeare in Love, this is a fresh and fun look at what could have been the inspiration for The Tempest.

Elizabeth Persons’ blinding headache while on board the Sea Venture is an ominous sign, one she knows well as a warning of danger. The young servant girl is one of 150 passengers on the ill-fated ship, her worst fears are soon realized as they are tossed mercilessly in a hurricane on the final leg of their journey to the Americas. As the storm calms, the passengers can hardly believe they have survived, and that the Bermudas, rumored home to evil spirits and dangerous natives, may be their only chance of salvation.

Despairing of rescue, Elizabeth and the others struggle to make the uninhabited island their home for nine long months while they build a new ship to complete their voyage to Jamestown, Virginia. As the months pass, friendships form, crew members revolt and love blossoms between Elizabeth and the ship’s young cook. Elizabeth forms a fast bond with the ship’s historian, a man she comes to know as William Strachey. But Will is not the man he portrays—he is in fact William Shakespeare—and they share a dangerous secret, a secret that could cost them their lives if they ever return to Protestant England.

After many months, their new ship is ready to sail and the surviving company finally lands in Jamestown, only to find that life there is hard and dangerous. When Elizabeth’s headaches return, she despairs of a threat to her young husband and their child, due later that year. Her world falls apart, but it is her good friend Will who gives her a chance for a new and independent life, by offering her the chance to return with him to live with his family in Stratford on Avon where they both must confront their past, face the risk of possible persecution, and start their lives again.