Juliet's Nurse: A Novel Audiobook

An enthralling new telling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet—told from the perspective of Juliet’s nurse.

In Verona, a city ravaged by plague and political rivalries, a mother mourning the death of her day-old infant enters the household of the powerful Cappelletti family to become the wet-nurse to their newborn baby. As she serves her beloved Juliet over the next fourteen years, the nurse learns the Cappellettis’ darkest secrets. Those secrets—and the nurse’s deep personal grief—erupt across five momentous days of love and loss that destroy a daughter, and a family.

By turns sensual, tragic, and comic, Juliet’s Nurse gives voice to one of literature’s most memorable and distinctive characters, a woman who was both insider and outsider among Verona’s wealthy ruling class. Exploring the romance and intrigue of interwoven loyalties, rivalries, jealousies, and losses only hinted at in Shakespeare’s play, this is a never-before-heard tale of the deepest love in Verona—the love between a grieving woman and the precious child of her heart.

In the tradition of Sarah Dunant, Philippa Gregory, and Geraldine Brooks, Juliet’s Nurse is a rich prequel that reimagines the world’s most cherished tale of love and loss, suffering and survival.

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“InShakespeare’s play, all we know of the world’s most famous star-crossed lovershappens over a period of five days. Lois Leveen’s imaginative retelling coversall the years before—from the nurse’s point of view. Nicola Barber delightswith her full-bodied, earthy performance of Angelica and her lusty husband,Pietro. When Angelica’s baby daughter dies in childbirth, Friar Lorenzo helpsher become live-in wet nurse to the Cappaletta’s newborn girl. Angelica becomesirrationally devoted to Juliet, convinced that she’s truly her baby, switchedat birth. Barber portrays aged Lord Cappaletta’s disappointment at not having ason and is convincing as Lady Cappaletta is driven to the edge of madness. Shehandles Elizabethan morés, beekeeping secrets, and hot-blooded teens engaged inan ancient feud with quicksilver vocal shifts. Wonderful listening. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”

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