Rating: 
Summary: What if Shakespeare's plays weren't fiction...
Review: Quicksilver is a faery version of Prince Hamlet, the rightful ruler of his people, whose inheritance has been usurped by his murderous brother. He can only wreak revenge and claim his birthright with the help of a mortal, and Will Shakespeare seems like just the man for the job. Luckily, Quicksilver has a gender-shifting talent, and Will is much intrigued by Q's female aspect...Will has an agenda as well; his wife has been kidnapped by the aforementioned usurping king, to be a nurse to his daughter...and the king eventually plans to make her his new Queen... An amusing romp consisting of a generous helping of _Hamlet_, set in the world of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, spiced up with fairy-nurse legends, a liberal dose of "Tam Lin", and a dash of "The Courtship of Etain", not to mention a ghost scene straight out of _The Return of the Jedi_. Much fun.
Rating: 
Summary: Pure magic!
Review: Sarah A. Hoyt blends magic and Shakespeare into a heady brew! Will Shakespeare is a 19-year-old school teacher, barely able to make ends meet for his wife and baby daughter. Then his wife and child disappear, taken by the "good people", the fairies, and Will must join forces with Quicksilver, an enigmatic elf, to save them. I definitely recommend this book for any fantasy or Shakespeare lover--and especially for anyone who loves both! Ms. Hoyt shows a side of Shakespeare I'd never considered. Conventional wisdom has it that Shakespeare and Ann Hathaway had an unhappy marriage, based on the evidence of the second-best bed, etc. Here we see Shakespeare in love (no pun intended) with his older, strong-minded wife. Part of the fun of this book was identifying the many references to Shakespeare's plays. I noted "Hamlet", "As You Like It", "Romeo and Juliet", and many others, and I probably missed quite a few. The moral of this review: catch this book before, like fairy magic, it disappears.
Rating:
Summary: Pure magic!
Review: Sarah A. Hoyt blends magic and Shakespeare into a heady brew! Will Shakespeare is a 19-year-old school teacher, barely able to make ends meet for his wife and baby daughter. Then his wife and child disappear, taken by the "good people", the fairies, and Will must join forces with Quicksilver, an enigmatic elf, to save them. I definitely recommend this book for any fantasy or Shakespeare lover--and especially for anyone who loves both! Ms. Hoyt shows a side of Shakespeare I'd never considered. Conventional wisdom has it that Shakespeare and Ann Hathaway had an unhappy marriage, based on the evidence of the second-best bed, etc. Here we see Shakespeare in love (no pun intended) with his older, strong-minded wife. Part of the fun of this book was identifying the many references to Shakespeare's plays. I noted "Hamlet", "As You Like It", "Romeo and Juliet", and many others, and I probably missed quite a few. The moral of this review: catch this book before, like fairy magic, it disappears.
Rating:
Summary: Well Met
Review: Sarah Hoyt has written a lovely fantasy that has the young Will Shakespeare saving his wife from the world of fairy, meeting his muse, and witnessing an internecine fairy conflict that will become grist for much of his future writing. She has also given us a literary guessing game as characters, quotes, and plots of the Bard's output come peeking around the corners of the story. Ariel is a dream. Her look into "fairyland" is often stunning in its invention. I particularly liked the use of dew drops as a sort of Elizabethan era DVD. There are points where the plot drags, but the book is short enough that we quickly move back along, and the excitement of fairy duels and life at court more than make up for any shortcomings. This book will do well in the hands of an adult, but should do exceptionally well with the "young mature" reader. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Sarah Hoyt is a good read
Review: Sarah Hoyt is neither William Shakespeare nor a wanna be, she is her own woman and her own writer. But she is fascinated by the Bard. That interest and resulting expertise does bleed through in her stories.
The story Ms Hoyt tells belongs in the category of "it could have been." She has sufficient knowledge to weave a plausible story inside the known facts of Will Shakespeare's life. But Ms Hoyt doesn't just pile fact upon fact. She starts with a very real seeming locale in England and begins following a day in the life of a very young William Shakespeare. She follows Will as he tries to find his missing wife and child. Then in what may become her trademark Ms Hoyt starts to veer off the tried and trite everyday world. Her plots do not go exactly where we anticipate. Her plots have a way of going to a better place than we anticipated. Her story works out to leave us with warm feeling of completion -- Of course it was Ms Hoyt and her skill that made it seem to be so.
Rating:
Summary: Sarah Hoyt is a good read
Review: Sarah Hoyt is neither William Shakespeare nor a wanna be, she is her own woman and her own writer. But she is fascinated by the Bard. That interest and resulting expertise does bleed through in her stories.
The story Ms Hoyt tells belongs in the category of "it could have been." She has sufficient knowledge to weave a plausible story inside the known facts of Will Shakespeare's life. But Ms Hoyt doesn't just pile fact upon fact. She starts with a very real seeming locale in England and begins following a day in the life of a very young William Shakespeare. She follows Will as he tries to find his missing wife and child. Then in what may become her trademark Ms Hoyt starts to veer off the tried and trite everyday world. Her plots do not go exactly where we anticipate. Her plots have a way of going to a better place than we anticipated. Her story works out to leave us with warm feeling of completion -- Of course it was Ms Hoyt and her skill that made it seem to be so.
Rating:
Summary: Ill Met By Moonlight Takes the Reader to Another Realm
Review: Sarah Hoyt's debut novel, "Ill Met By Moonlight" is a wonderfully crafted tale that dances between the worlds of the historical William Shakespeare and that of the fairies immortalized in his plays. Ms. Hoyt has an amazing talent for transporting her readers into the minds and environments of her characters in a way that makes her stories tangible to the senses. I found "Ill Met By Moonlight" to be an engrossing tale, one that I spoke so enthusiastically about to other family members that they were chomping at the bit waiting for me to finish so that they could have their turns reading it!
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful tale worthy of the Bard
Review: Take a story that has a poor man's wife and daughter kidnapped, the mysterious death of a monarch, the rightful heir passed over due to a physical abnormality, twist them and entwine them together, and you'd have a pretty good story. Now, make the poor man none other than a young William Shakespeare, living in Stratford prior to his ascension in London. The murdered monarchs turn out to be King Oberon and Queen Titania of the fairy people. The abnormality of the rightful heir Quicksilver turns out to be the ability to shape-shift between two aspects of himself, a quality that his brother Sylvanus exploits to become the king. Now mix up these elements and you'd swear that Sarah Hoyt had three witches stirring a brew and speaking cryptic riddles in her office when she wrote "Ill Met By Moonlight". In this well crafted novel we meet young Will Shakespeare, before he went to London, and before he wrote his first play. Earning a meager wage as a teacher, he lives with his wife Anne and infant daughter Susannah in a small house on his father's lot. His simple life is broken apart when he returns home one night to find his family gone. In trying to locate them Will finds that Sylvanus has taken them to the fairy palace so Anne can be wet nurse for Sylvanus' daughter whose human mother has recently died. Quicksilver in turn discovers Will, and embroils him in a plot to regain his throne that forces Will to eventually fight the powerful magic of Sylvanus not only for his family, but for his life. Hoyt's use of language not only provides the images of the places and participants, but also the feeling of the setting as it must have appeared during Shakespeare's life. She seamlessly blends the real world with that of fairy as Will moves between the two worlds to find his family, and discovers that there may be more for him in life than his role as a humble teacher. Working to stay true to what is known of Shakespeare's early life, she weaves a story full of court intrigue, mysterious deaths, and hidden motivations that introduce many character types that show up in various later plays by the as yet still mortal bard. Written for readers of the twenty-first century, using characters and locations from the sixteenth, "Ill Met By Moonlight" is an excellent tale of heroism, conspiracy, and the search for justice. A story that would be worthy of stage presentation in five acts, if such were still being written today.
Rating:
Summary: A Midsummer Night's fun
Review: This book is a delight. Anyone who loves Shakespeare and the faerie world will probably get something out of this. It stars Quicksilver, who was the rightful heir to throne of the fairy kindgom and consequently stripped of many of his powers. His brother is the one who took the throne after their parents were murdered. In the meantime, Quicksilver's brother needs a new bride, and steals Will Shakespeare's wife and baby to take over as queen (and care for his own little one). Quicksilver ultimately conspires with Shakespeare to set things straight and along the way the reader runs into many charming Shakespearian elements (familiar characters appear, familiar phrases are uttered). It's as if Hoyt used these settings as future inspiration for the budding Bard. A joy to read, and Hoyt's penned a sequel, 'All Night Awake,' to continue new adventures in London, once all is concluded in Stratford.
Rating:
Summary: Quicksilver!
Review: To tell the truth I probably would've walked by the display of "Ill met by moonlight" in a bookstore, ignoring its colourful cover or flashing title. Fantasy and fairy tales are not really my cup of tea. However, it was the prospect of listening to audio book version read by Jason Carter that made me buy the tale. Fans do some crazy stuff that is for sure. Now, after listening to eight hours of adventure, love and magic, I have to admit that I would've truly missed a fantastic novel if I hadn't bought it when I did. The first few minutes, the prologue to be exact, sounded strange to my ears. Then the story started and I was pulled into the magical world of Will Shakespeare and Prince Quicksilver. English is not my first language so I have to say that I did not understand all words of this very colourful story. I learned to love and hate the characters and when the story moved on I was eager to see what would happen in the next scene, the next paragraph, yes, the next sentence. I fell in love with Quicksilver just as Lady Ariel did - and yet hoped for the dark Lady Silver to show Will the pleasures of love and passion. Sometimes my breath would catch in my throat when the unexpected happened. The Hunter's evil herd of wolves, or Will's attempt to capture Lady Silver by iron chains made me gasp in surprise and I hoped and feared for my favourite character. In the end I was sad that the tale ended so soon but it was a good end, a happy end of a fairy tale. This was only the second audio book I've ever "read". I was very pleased with the reading by Jason Carter who breathed vivid life into each character.
| 
