This Rec League came from Meg in our SBTB Patreon Discord server. Thanks, Meg!
Do you have recommendations for books based on or inspired by Shakespeare plays? I recently read Two Wrongs Make a Right by Chloe Liese, which is inspired by Much Ado About Nothing (my favorite play) and it made me want more! Shakespeare’s comedies end in marriage, so they seem like good candidates to be adapted into romance novels.
Sarah: Ramón and Julieta!
Amanda: Eva Devon’s Much Ado About Dukes. It’s the second in a series and they’re all literary-inspired.
Sarah: Nisha Sharma’s two newest. Tastes Like Shakkar ( A | BN | K ) is a Much Ado About Nothing retelling.
Oh there’s a Mary Stewart – This Rough Magic ( A | BN | K ) is the Tempest. And the early Eloisa James novels I believe too – her first few were retellings, weren’t they?
Amanda: She has some fairy tale ones but not sure about Shakespeare
Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights ( A | BN | K | AB ) is inspired by Romeo and Juliet (so not a comedy) but it’s a new adult romance set in a magical 1920s Shanghai and the main characters are the heirs to rival crime families.
Kiki: Ten Things I Hate About The Duke by Loretta Chase is a Taming of the Shrew retelling and one of my favorite romances of all time
Elyse: The Dane of My Existence by Jessica Martin
Amanda: Oh that’s right, she did For Love of the Bard! ( A | BN | K )
Which books would you recommend? Tell us in the comments!
The Unexpected Duchess by Valerie Bowman is a bit Taming of the Shrew and a bit Cyrano. The Unlikely Lady also by Valerie Bowman has a couple that gets full on Much Ado’ed.
Here are a few:
TWO WRONGS MAKE A RIGHT by Chloe Liese – Much Ado About Nothing retelling, contemporary setting.
BEN AND BEATRIX by Katalina Gamarra – another Much Ado About Nothing retelling with a Latinx heroine, contemporary setting with college-aged MCs. I didn’t love it, although it resolved the “Hero problem” in a much more satisfying way
ROSEALINE was a recent Hulu movie that focused on Romeo’s girlfriend whom he jilted when he met Juliet. It was a lot of fun and nobody dies. Based on a YA novel, WHEN YOU WERE MINE by Rebecca Serle, which I have not read.
TEACH THE TORCHES TO BURN by Caleb Roehrig – queer YA retelling with a happier ending. I haven’t read it yet but I have enjoyed others in this YA queer “remix” series including SELF MADE BOYS by Anna-Marie MacLemore, which is The Great Gatsby where Nick in love with our titular hero.
Now do Pride & Prejudice retellings!
I love, love, love the YA THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN ME IS YOU by Lily Anderson. Much Ado About Nothing in a modern setting, a hyper competitive academic private school.
Also NOTHING MUCH TO DO, Much Ado About Nothing as a bunch of vlogging Kiwi teens on YouTube. Fake reality style, I guess? some of the real and fake comments are really cute too 😉
These both have pretty dated pop culture references, but darn it MAAN is my favorite Shakespeare play and these are comfort reread/rewatch things for me.
Sorry forgot to add that Teach the Torches to Burn is queer Romeo & Juliet retelling.
Much Ado is my fave. Seconding Nothing Much to Do, a very fun webseries based on Much Ado.
West Side Love Story by Priscilla Oliveras, based on Romeo and Juliet, was a fun read.
The short-lived Still Star-Crossed tv series with Lashana Lynch was based on a novel of the same title by Melinda Taub. Picks up after Romea and Juliet and the romance is between Rosaline and Benvolio.
@ella. I LOVED that show. Anthony Stewart Head as Juliet’s dad! Non-decomposing corpses!
Second still-starcrossed it also crosses over with Much Ado About Nothing.
Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey is lit fic, but I remember enjoying it.
THE KING OF INFINITE SPACE BY LYNDSAY FAYE is a modern retelling YA of hamlet with an emphasis on Horatio/Hamlet
The Hogoth Shakespeare project in the late 2010s were a series of modern retellings of Shakespeare plays by famous writers. Mostly lit fic, but the retelling of the Taming of the Shrew, Vinger Girl is a romance.
My favourite Shakespeare retelling in recent years was in a fanfic where the main characters were performing in a queer BDSM staging of Taming of the Shrew
I second the mentions of Ben and Beatriz by Katalina Gamarra (Much Ado, Beatriz is a POC and the story takes place after the 2016 election so there’s a lot of anger and Ben[edict] gets to confront his white privilege) and The King of Infinite Space by Lyndsay Faye (Hamlet is a neuroatypical theater kid, Horatio is not white and quite gay, and [Ophe]Lia is an angry artist). I adored both of these books and have been pitching them to all my Shakespeare-loving friends.
Tessa Gratton has two fantasies, The Queens of Innis Lear and Lady Hotspur, built around King Lear and Henry IV, respectively. Lots of wonderful female characters, and in the case of LH, lots of sapphic affection too.
Jacqueline Carey’s Miranda and Caliban, Tad Williams’ Caliban’s Hour, and Katherine Duckett’s Miranda in Milan are all built around The Tempest–the first two from Caliban’s POV, the third from Miranda’s after the events of the play.
Diana Paxson’s The Serpent’s Tooth is a King Lear retelling set in ancient Britain among warring tribes. Cridilla (Cordelia) does not just sit around being nice.
Eloisa James Essex Sisters series. Definitely Shakespeare.
Seconding many of the recs above, especially the “Nothing Much to Do” web series and the “Rosaline” movie. My favorite retelling of Much Ado is SPEAK EASY, SPEAK LOVE by McKelle George, which sets the story in the 1920s. It’s YA, so the romance is pretty PG, but I really loved it!
I love Mary Stewart’s THIS ROUGH MAGIC, but while it does reference The Tempest (a lot), it isn’t really a retelling. Totally worth reading, though!
I have a list of Shakespeare retellings and Shakespeare adjacent titles that I keep for my library job. Some of them are older and many of them are YA. Some are romance and some are Love stories, but many are not.
The most interesting books on the list are Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters, Jasper Fforde’s Something Rotten, and Christopher Moore’s 3 book sequence: Fool, Serpent of Venice, and Shakespeare for Squirrels. All of these books approach the Bard with the kind of edgy humor that these authors are noted for and none of them have particularly tragic endings.
Also Vinegar Girl, mentioned by @Rebecca, is by Anne Tyler–so, not too shabby.
My favorite Shakespeare adjacent titles are a couple of Ngaio Marsh’s theater-centric mysteries, Killer Dolphin and Light Thickens. I always think of Marsh when I read Lucy Parker, because Marsh is exceptionally good at portraying the inner workings of theatrical life, as is Parker.
Seconding Pam G’s recommendation re the two Ngaio Marsh mysteries. They are wonderful!
Another entertaining Shakespeare-adjacent book is Interred With Their Bones, by Jennifer Lee Carrell, a mystery thriller about a woman following clues in search of a missing Shakespeare work, while being pursued by a serial killer who kills in the style of Shakespearean villains.
Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall is Shakespeare adjacent.
It’s an oddball genre mashing fantasy ff romance set in alt Regency England, with magic and old gods. Narrated by Robin Goodfellow (aka Puck, the narrator of A Midsummer Night’s Dream), how much you like this book (imo) will come down to how much you enjoy/ tolerate the snarky, omniscient story telling style – it’s so very clever (this isn’t necessarily meant as a compliment btw), with lots of asides complaining about mortals, plus Shakespearean references. Read the sample first. The blurb doesn’t represent the book well in my opinion.
Eloisa James is a Shakespeare professor, so his influence definitely pops up in her work periodically!
another Shakespeare-adjacent non-romance: If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio, a literary mystery in every sense, steeped in King Lear, with tangled love stories at its heart.
Ann Leckie’s The Raven Tower is a Hamlet retelling.
Shakespeare in Love series by Christy English. Three books that are each loosely inspired by Shakespeare.
How to Tame a Willful Wife (Taming of the Shrew, my personal favorite.)
Love on a Midsummer Night
Much Ado About Jack
Really enjoyed the series and they have earned a second reading for me.
Valerie Bowman’s No Other Duke But You (A Midsummer’s Night Dream), Untamed Earl (Taming of the Shrew), and The Unlikely Lady (Much Ado About Nothing).
Oo-oo-oo! Another Shakespeare adjacent book: Sarah Smith’s Chasing Shakespeare focuses on the “Who wrote Shakespeare?” controversy. I know that Shakespeare adjacent is not the same as Shakespeare retelling, but we are so fortunate that Shakespeare’s life is so fascinating and mysterious.
For Shakespeare adjacent: If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio. Students at a drama college that focuses on Shakespeare. Thriller/mystery instead of romance, but very well done!