June 19, 2023
YA author Skye (The Crown’s Game) makes her adult debut with a swoony, Shakespeare-inspired fantasy romance that seamlessly imbues the Bard’s star-crossed lovers with a contemporary feel. Helene, 30 years old and fresh from being passed over for a promotion and in the midst of divorcing her narcissistic husband, flees to Alaska. It’s supposed to be a refuge, a place she can work on a manuscript linking the romantic vignettes she’s written ever since starring as Juliet in a middle school play. Her first night in town she meets local fisherman Sebastien—and recognizes him immediately as the hero of all her love stories. Sebastien knows Helene, too, and has known her under many different names. Originally, she was Juliet and he was Romeo. He’s been cursed to find her across lifetimes. Every time they fall in love, however, it ends in her death. The pair dance around each other—a flirtation that is both new and centuries old—as the oft-heartbroken Sebastien desperately searches for a way to change the ending. His melancholy is perfectly balanced by bold, courageous Helene’s sweetness. The result is a rich, heartfelt tale of love and loss and love again. Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary.
July 1, 2023
Newly divorced Helene has moved from California to Alaska, where she intends to reinvent herself, write a novel, and escape devastating blows to both her journalism career and her marriage. She did not intend to meet Sebastien, the personification of the love interest in the short stories she writes, with whom she feels an instant and intense connection. Sebastien, however, recognizes Helene immediately as a reincarnation of Juliet Capulet. He is Romeo Montague, doomed to live forever, loving and losing incarnations of Juliet for the rest of time. Helene and Sebastien navigate a relationship fraught with the history of a famous love story, played out through eras and nations, that Helene has written about and Sebastien lived through. Veteran author Skye invokes flavors of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife (2003) or Alix E. Harrow's The Ten Thousand Doors of January (2019) in this new novel. A new twist on a classic love story, The Hundred Loves of Juliet will appeal to readers of contemporary fantasy or historical romance with its time- and place-bending take on some of literature's most enduring lovers.Newly divorced Helene has moved from California to Alaska, where she intends to reinvent herself, write a novel, and escape devastating blows to both her journalism career and her marriage. She did not intend to meet Sebastien, the personification of the love interest in the short stories she writes, with whom she feels an instant and intense connection. Sebastien, however, recognizes Helene immediately as a reincarnation of Juliet Capulet. He is Romeo Montague, doomed to live forever, loving and losing incarnations of Juliet for the rest of time. Helene and Sebastien navigate a relationship fraught with the history of a famous love story, played out through eras and nations, that Helene has written about and Sebastien lived through. Veteran author Skye invokes flavors of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife (2003) or Alix E. Harrow's The Ten Thousand Doors of January (2019) in this new novel. A new twist on a classic love story, The Hundred Loves of Juliet will appeal to readers of contemporary fantasy or historical romance with its time- and place-bending take on some of literature's most enduring lovers.
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August 4, 2023
Skye (Damsel) puts a contemporary, time-spanning spin on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Helene is trying to pick up the pieces of her life, but dealing with writer's block and going through a divorce are not exactly helping her. However, she's determined to start over and not get involved where love is concerned. One day in her Alaskan hometown, she encounters a mysterious fisherman who is the quintessential man she's been writing about and wonders how it could be possible that a person she's only dreamed about could be real. While Helene embarks on a journey to discover the identity of this handsome mystery man, the man in question, Sebastien Montague, holds a secret that has traveled with him over centuries of tragedy. Told not only from different viewpoints but also across time, Skye's novel takes a classic tale and writes a timeline of the characters' lives from the moment they first met. What starts off as a story of rediscovery turns into a love story that spans multiple lifetimes. VERDICT This is one Romeo and Juliet spinoff that will keep readers wanting more and longing to find out how the romance will end.--BreAnn Weeks
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