Mercutio Kate Heartfield 9780008727192

From Sunday Times bestselling author of The Embroidered Book and The Valkyrie comes an opulent 13th century epic retelling of the life of Mercutio before he ever encountered Romeo and Juliet.

On the battlefield, as warring factions deal out death, young Mercutio chances upon the charismatic poet Dante Alighieri. In their desperate stand against the enemy, they inadvertently open a crack between our world and Faerie, literally changing the stars over Mercutio's head, and creating a mysterious presence who will follow Mercutio for all the days of his life.

With new stars come new destinies for young men who will travel to the ends of the Earth to honour the bonds of love and friendship.

As outcasts and exiles, Mercutio and Dante find family in a band of fighters called the Montecchi, near Verona. With his friends at his side, Mercutio will battle to change his stars, and to free the changeling upon whose fate hangs the future of the human world.

Kate Heartfield is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling The Embroidered Book, the Aurora-winning novel Armed in Her Fashion, and the Nebula-shortlisted novella Alice Payne Arrives, along with dozens of other stories. Her interactive fiction projects The Road to Canterbury and The Magician's Workshop were shortlisted for the Nebula in game writing. She lives in Canada.

Visit her at www.heartfieldfiction.com or on Twitter @kateheartfield.

'Deftly confident, effortlessly poetic, MERCUTIO feels like a beloved and universal myth known for millennia, retold for modern readers. There are truths in this world; there are secrets; there are horrors; no one will teach us what is right to fear, and only stories can show us why love and loyalty still give us hope. Mercutio Guertio is an unforgettable hero - a young man both discovering and inventing himself, journeying fearlessly under all the wrong stars' Premee Mohamed, author of The Butcher of the Forest

'But soft, what light through yonder oh my god, what did Kate Heartfield do to Shakespeare? This book is amazing. Justice at last for Romeo and Juliet's best character. For those who like their fae dark, wild, and heartless - a glitteringly crafted adventure where every word is faceted, the finest and sharpest of winter jewels' C.J. Lavigne, author of The Drowned Man's Daughter

'Poignant, clever and playfully strange in a very medieval way' Jelena Dunato, author of Dark Woods, Deep Water

'When Heartfield pulls back the curtain separating our world from Faerie, the results are beautiful, visceral, and terrifying. Inventive, brilliant, unsettling, and enchanting' Kate Story, author and playwright

Praise for Kate Heartfield

'Spellbinding' JJA Harwood

'This richly detailed, character-driven story renders epic mythological battles on a human scale' Publishers Weekly

'An entertaining and dark read' Stylist

'An absorbing novel' Guardian

'Beautifully written' Elizabeth Chadwick