Book #14

The Fool's Girl by Celia Rees
142 pages in
Popular Fiction
This book is by one of my favorite authors she wrote Sovay which is one of my favorite books. Celia's books are mostly about the times were women had to wear corsets and there were pirates and courts with jesters and fools. Sovay was about a girl who became a highway robber and ventures into the French Revolution and finds love on the way.
The Fool's Girl is a retelling of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. It is about a girl, Violetta, who is the daughter of a Duke. Her mother disappeared and is assumed dead, her father and her mothers best friend go into mourning and aren't seen at all in the daylight. The friends husband is the mothers twin and he turns evil and kills the father and sells the girl into slavery. Violetta has three friends that are sold away to different people. Feste the fool who is her protector and finds her to liberate her from her captor. Guido the page of her father who is a great friend. And Stephano who is her cousin who also, very weirdly, is I guess you would say her lover. Gross right!! Anyways Feste and Violetta end up in London looking for help to get something that was stolen, ironically by the man who "owned" her. It is the cup of myrrh that was brought to the baby Jesus that was stolen. The whole country was built around that cup and with it gone it has fallen to ruin. Violetta is the rightful ruler and she is determined to get the relic back and claim her throne. She knows were it is and is hoping that William Shakespeare can get them into the place that the slave owner, Malvolio, is staying. Shakespeare is very interested in their story and wants to help them but people high in power have noticed them with him and are threatening to close the playhouses if William does not give them info on Violetta and Feste.
At this point it is kind of confusing but Celia's' books usually straighten out towards the end and usually take two reads to fully understand them.