Theater geek Alex Cuoco has an embarrassing confession to make: He's never been that into Shakespeare. Especially that one play everyone knows and ninth-grade English teachers try to ram down their throats. But one night trying to impress his crush and (failing) to pay attention to a film adaptation lands him none other but in Elizabethan England, face to face with the man himself: William Shakespeare, barely thirty, a new member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men and dealing with his own love doldrums. Now as Alexander "Sander" Cooke, a ward of Shakespeare's fellow actor and BFF John Heminges, Alex finds himself amid the thrills and demands of Renaissance English theater, approached by seedy rivals to steal Shakespeare's most ambitious project yet: A little known tragedy called Romeo and Juliet... With his father's freedom hanging in the balance, Alex must find a way to betray a man he has come to respect...even as a passionate, forbidden love from an unexpected corner threatens to undo him and change both of his worlds. [25,000 words]
14 parts