The Sonnet Lover

February 12, 2007
Goodman (The Ghost Orchid
) turns to Shakespeare for the plot of her fifth novel, with mixed results. Rose Asher, Hudson College Renaissance poetry professor, returns to La Civetta, the Italian estate-turned-academic retreat where, as a college student 20 years earlier, she had the romance of her life with married professor Bruno Brunelli. He's still there, but this time Rose has come as an adviser on a film inspired by Shakespeare's sonnets and the mysterious "Dark Lady" therein. The script, which includes an unattributed Shakespeare-like sonnet (taken from a manuscript found at La Civetta), is by one of Rose's star pupils, Robin Weiss, who soon dies in a possibly suicidal accident. The manuscript has vanished, but the sonnet seems to suggest that Ginevra de Laura, the 16th-century daughter of a master mosaic artist who worked at the estate, may be its author—and Shakespear's Dark Lady. Multiple plots and subplots revolve around the manuscript's recovery, Robin's death, the film, Rose's clandestine relationship with college president Mark Abrams, Bruno's presence and worries that Bruno's son, Orlando, may be a murderer. Goodman makes a plausible fictional case for Ginevra's crossing paths with Shakespeare and ably recreates the present and past Italian countryside. Nevertheless, dizzying crisscrosses, love triangles and rampant political machinations surrounding La Civetta's ownership obscure an intriguing solution to the lingering Dark Lady mystery.

March 1, 2007
Hudson College professor Rose Asher is distraught when her favorite student apparently jumps to his death following a showing of his student film. Compelled to discover the reason behind Robin's action, Rose returns to Florence and the villa of La Civetta, where Robin studied the previous summer and where Rose fell in love with literature and Bruno Brunelli 20 years earlier. Bruno is still teaching at the villa. Its owner, Cyril Graham, is considering leaving it to Hudson College, but Bruno's wife, Claudia, is suing for ownership owing to the relationship between Bruno's mother and Cyril's father. Suddenly, everything hinges on finding the poems of Ginevra de Laura, mistress of the home's owner back in 1581, and their connection to Robin's death. Rose has a self-deprecating manner by turns charming and slightly out of tune with events around her. Still, the scholarly investigation here is fascinating; just when it seems we've gotten to the bottom of things, Goodman ("The Ghost Orchid") has her protagonist traveling down another "viale". Though the denouement is a bit too convenient, Goodman's fans will want to read this work, and mystery lovers should pay close attention, too. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/1/07.]Bette-Lee Fox, "Library Journal"

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