I should have posted this sooner, but I’m so pleased to share that my book, Searching for Juliet, will be published by Sceptre in April 2023. They have worldwide rights and there will be an announcement about the US publication very soon! Here’s the Bookseller blurb for those who don’t subscribe (I do now subscribe – you can probably guess when I narcissistically started! – and really recommend it. I’m gradually building a list of 2021 reads):

Sceptre has acquired a cultural, historical and literary exploration of the birth, death and legacy of Shakespeare’s Juliet Capulet.

Searching for Juliet is authored by Dr Sophie Duncan, a fellow in English at Christ Church, University of Oxford, and expert on Shakespeare in performance and in the broader fields of theatre history.

In the book, according to Sceptre, she takes readers from the Renaissance origin story behind Shakespeare’s 13-year-old child bride, to the sexual revolutionary of ’60s film and theatre, fromthe African slave girls named after a fictional teenager to the legacy of the beautiful dead girl trope in everything from Shakespeare to contemporary TV series such as “13 Reasons Why”.

Associate publisher Juliet Brooke bought world rights from Georgina Capel, commenting: “I obviously have a certain bias with this subject that proves to me quite how much Juliet’s legacy reaches beyond literature into our social mores. What makes Sophie’s proposal so exceptional is the incredible range and depth of her exploration: the legacy of a heroine such as Juliet encompasses everything from feminism to scholarly insight on Shakespeare’s text, from a portrait of the Shakespeare industry in Stratford to questioning gender norms. It’s also fantastically sharp and witty and a total joy to read.”

Duncan said she was bowled over by the enthusiasm and vision of the team at Sceptre and remarked her new editor’s name was “a great omen”

read the full article here