Excerpt from Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"You've never seen this place before, and yet you're from Verona?" said the man in surprise.

Rosaline feared she'd given away that she was a Capulet. "Yes! I mean, of course. But it seems different each visit. One is not the same each time one enters."

"No, indeed. And it's not just reason that must be abandoned as one enters. See what's written here?" He pointed to another inscription near the fertility goddess. Solo per sfogar il core.

"'The heart must be unburdened,'" read Rosaline slowly.

"And what makes your heart heavy, friend?" he asked, his voice mild and pliant with sympathy.

"Why do you think me unhappy?"

"No one plays music as you did unless his soul is lined with lead."

Rosaline stared at him in surprise. This was the first kindness a man had ever shown toward her, even if at this particular moment he did not know her to be a woman. She had believed herself long inured to the apathy of her father. She was of no consequence at all to her brother. He thought about his hounds more often. Taken off guard by this stranger's attentions, Rosaline longed to confess her unhappiness. Her throat itched with tears. It was her own fault for drinking too much wine, but he was looking at her with such gentleness, his expression open and frank. She longed to tell him too about her mother's death, about being sent away to the convent. That sometimes it seemed as if no one loved her but Caterina, who was paid to do so, and Juliet, who being so young knew no better. Yet she could not, or she would reveal she was a woman, and women did not sit out in the dark unchaperoned with men they did not know. She must leave. The thought of dawn was tickling the tops of the trees. She scrambled to her feet.

"I did not mean to cause offense," said the stranger, rising. "Do not go."

"It's late. Or rather it is early and soon the house will rise and I must be abed."

"Please. Stay. Just one minute more."

She hesitated.

"What harm is a single minute spent with a friend?"

"Can strangers be friends?"

"Strangers such as we, I think. We have broken bread together. We have listened to rare music. We have lain together side by side on a summer's night beneath the pale-­faced moon. I hope that makes us friends."

Rosaline flushed to hear him speak of them lying together, but knew he meant it innocently enough, for how could he not?

"Tell me then, my lord, where you learned to play the lute?" he asked.

Speaking of the lute made Rosaline think about her mother, and she could not bear to do that. "Fie! You ask a lot of questions," she said.

"Very well. You ask me one. Only stay."

Rosaline considered. There was only one thing she really wanted to know. "Will you show me a Montague?"

He did not laugh, only looked puzzled. "I could, but why?"

"I want to see one."

"'One'? You make it sound like they are beasts, not men."

"If they are men, then they are all wicked. Monstrous. Like this garden they built."

"It is wild perhaps. Astonishing. But wicked? No."

Rosaline said nothing for a moment, uncertain. "I have heard it said that they are wanton and wicked to a man."

"How so?"

Rosaline frowned. "I cannot say, having never met one."

At this the stranger was provoked. He turned from her, his fingers toying with the hilt of his sword. "You cannot say? You know of no reason?"

Rosaline shook her head, reluctant to recite the origin of the feud and betray herself as a Capulet, and the man faced her again, edging toward her until she was compelled to back away.

"You are full of insinuations and hints, and suggest to me, a stranger, the tired, vile, and vicious rumors that are hissed all around Verona by our enemies, the Capulets. And yet still you come here—­to the Montague place—­to eat their food and drink their wine and make merry among their guests, and to repeat these dishonors."

Excerpted from Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons. Copyright © 2023 by Natasha Solomons. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.