Title: Fair Rosaline
Author: Natasha Solomons
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Publication date: August 3, 2023
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Fair Rosaline is a powerful retelling of Romeo and Juliet, faithful to the major plot beats of Shakespeare’s tragedy, but with a shift in perspective that changes everything. It’s fascinating, fast-moving, and now that I’ve finished, hard to stop thinking about.

In the traditional version, Romeo is first introduced as lovestruck over “fair Rosaline” — until he attends a Capulet party and suddenly falls completely in love with Rosaline’s cousin Juliet. Rosaline is forgotten, and we all know how things turn out for Juliet.

Here in Fair Rosaline, we see life in Verona through Rosaline’s eyes, and it isn’t pretty. With her mother a recent plague victim, Rosaline mourns her loss mostly alone, as her father is consumed by his own grief and has little patience for his 15-year-old daughter. After passing the required period of being locked up to make sure they don’t spread the plague further, Rosaline’s father shares devastating news: It was her mother’s wish that she be sent to the nunnery, and he intends to carry out this plan immediately.

There are no good choices here for Rosaline. Marriage or the convent are the only options, and as her brother is already married and has children, there’s no need to worry about further heirs. Rosaline’s dowry will go instead to the convent, and she’ll be locked behind its walls forever. Her wishes don’t matter. Desperate to prolong her freedom, Rosaline bargains with her father, and in the end, gets a concession — he’ll give her twelve days more at home, but then she must go.

Into Rosaline’s sad life, Romeo bursts like a ray of light. She sneaks away to attend the forbidden Montague ball, wanting a taste of life before she’s locked away, and there meets the handsome, smooth-talking Romeo, who seems instantly enamored by beautiful young Rosaline. Where Fair Rosaline differs sharply from the story we think we all know is that Romeo is clearly older — late twenties or early thirties, at least. As the author’s notes tell us, it’s just custom that Romeo is usually portrayed as a teen: Shakespeare specifies that Juliet is thirteen, but Romeo’s age is never stated.

What becomes clear in Fair Rosaline is that Romeo is a predator. His beautiful words are creepy here, as he uses his sleek, skillful speeches as tools of seduction, preying on much younger, innocent girls, whose sheltered lives leave them susceptible to his grooming. He doesn’t use physical violence to get his way — instead, he seduces with poetic pronouncements and over-the-top romantic gestures, promises of immediate marriage, and depictions of a future life together that’s always just out of reach.

Love with him was carnal and delicious and all consuming; he wasn’t just a hunter but a thief, stealing from girls their very selves.

When Rosaline finally faces the cruel reality of Romeo’s true nature and confronts him, he turns his attentions to her younger cousin Juliet, another easy victim for his manipulation. Rosaline and her beloved cousin Tybalt are desperate to save Juliet, who is too swept up by Romeo’s suave charm to hear their warnings.

Fair Rosaline sweeps us up into Rosaline’s misery as well as her moments of joy. This is clearly a young woman hungry for life, literature, and music, yearning for freedom that can never be hers. Between mourning her mother and dreading her incarceration behind convent walls, it’s no wonder that she’s an easy target for an experienced man who seems to offer her everything she could want.

Life in Verona at this time is presented at a tangible, visceral level, full of dirt, disease, and smells. The upper class lives of Rosaline’s world are adjacent to the terrible poverty and filth of the poorer quarters, and disease isn’t the only threat, as we see example after example of women dying in childbirth or losing children.

Even Juliet, pampered and protected, isn’t truly safe — even before she meets Romeo. After all, to the wealthy and powerful, a pretty thirteen-year-old girl is considered a candidate for marriage. Juliet’s parents plan her marriage to Paris despite her youth.

It was because of Lauretta and Nurse and Old Capulet and the good honest hypocrites of Verona that Juliet believed it was well and good for her to wed a man when she was still a child. While trying to break her in for Paris or his like, her family had seen to it that she was nicely softened for Romeo. Her arms had already been open and ready for him.

The crypts and graveyards themselves loom menacingly throughout the story. They’re not austere, holy sites to remember loved ones, but reeking pits where the dead rot and stink. Juliet’s pretend death and placement in the family crypt is horrifying: This isn’t a beautiful tableau of a young woman in eternal sleep, but a horror of a scene in which a young girl is entombed among rotting corpses.

I won’t say how the author ends her version of the story, but it’s quite powerful and masterfully told. The author weaves in phrases and moments from Shakespeare, but has them feel like natural parts of the story. Events and people fall in line with the origin story, but only on the surface. There’s more going on, and while the major set-pieces still happen, there are different elements, emotions, and motives at play as well. It’s utterly fascinating to see these pieces come together.

Rosaline is a sympathetic character. It’s easy to understand how she’d be vulnerable to someone like Romeo, and while we know she’s making bad decisions, given her lack of experience and dire circumstances, it’s impossible to fault her in any way. She’s a young girl who’s being preyed upon, and we can only admire her for wanting to take action and protect Juliet once she realizes the truth.

Fair Rosaline is a compelling read, upsetting and moving and thought-provoking. I’ll never think of Romeo and Juliet in quite the same way again.