This novel is entirely a work of fiction The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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First published in the U.S.A. by Berkley Publishing Group, an imprint of Penguin Group (U.S.A.) Inc., New York, NY, 2011
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2012
Copyright © Gillian Bagwell 2011
Gillian Bagwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9781847562593
Ebook Edition © July 2012 ISBN: 9780007443314
Version 2018-07-23
This book is dedicated to the memory of
Khin-Kyaw Maung
I miss you every day.
and
Ross Ireland
You left us far too soon.
Table of Contents
Read on for an extract from her first novel, The Darling Strumpet.
THE AFTERNOON SUN DAPPLED THROUGH THE LEAVES OF THE oak tree. Jane Lane sat in its shade, her back against its stalwart trunk, the Second Folio of Shakespeare’s works open on her lap. She had sneaked her favourite book from her father’s library and taken it out near the summerhouse, where she could read and dream in peace.
Though what need have I to sneak? she asked herself. I am five and twenty today, and if I am ever to be thought no longer a child, it must be so today. Lammas Eve.
“On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen,” her Nurse had said of Juliet Capulet. Jane shared Juliet’s birthday, the thirty-first