William Shakespeare is trying to establish himself in the theatrical world and stumbles across an astonishing story. 40 years earlier a woman was burned to death following a trial for the murder of her husband. It sparks his creative energy and he sets to work on his first ever play…
Arden is an historical depiction of a new theory about a Tudor play and the legal case that inspired it.
Will is in trouble in his local area and feels unfulfilled helping in the family glove-making business. He joins a band of actors and finds a talent for amending plays, inspiring him to write his own. The story of Alice Arden captivates his interest. She shares the same surname as his mother and he is fascinated to unpick the truth behind the crime.
The book is written in two timelines to show Will’s experience in the 1580s and Alice’s life in the 1540s as she faces life’s struggles which unltimately lead to a murder and her own execution. Both characters are trying to negotiate their way throgh a dangerous world. Alice has the extra difficulty of being a woman, constrained by the gender conventions of the era. Politics and class affect both their lives too.
I felt that both timelines were equally well developed and I was immersed in the Tudor world. It is wonderful to get an insight into the potential truth of the mystery years of Shakespeare before he became famous. The new research that the the author has undertaken was extensive in my opinion and I thought that the fictional write up was very effective. I enjoyed the exploration of the murder and motves with the personal dimension of Alice’s story from the primary sources.
Arden is an engaging and enjoyable historical novel.
Arden
Alice Arden, idealistic and wealthy beauty, burnt at the stake for killing her husband, the former mayor of Faversham in Kent. But was she really the one responsible for the most scandalous murder of the sixteenth century?
William Shakespeare, England’s greatest playwright, born thirteen years after Alice’s execution. Why does his first-ever play, written about this murder, not bear his name?
This is a story of two people – one reviled, one revered – whose fates become linked in a tale of corruption, collusion and conspiracy. Based on historical documents and recently published academic research, Arden unveils shocking new evidence about the murder of Thomas Arden and reveals, for the first time, a remarkable new theory about Shakespeare’s early years.
I have written four novels in the last eight years under the penname GD Harper.
My last novel, The Maids of Biddenden, the imagined biography of real-life conjoined twins born in 12th-century Kent, was featured on BBC TV News and was the winner of the Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the historical fiction category, shortlisted for the 2022 Selfie Award at the London Book Fair, and shortlisted or longlisted for five other awards.
It has over a thousand ratings on Amazon UK and Goodreads, with an average score of 4.3. Across the major Amazon markets, it reached number sixteen in overall paid-for e-book sales, number two in historical fiction and number one in medieval historical fiction.
