A DAUGHTER OF FAIR VERONA

Dodd’s series launch turns a Shakespearean tragedy into a rom-com mystery.

“My name is Rosie, Rosaline if I’m in trouble, and I’m the daughter of Romeo and Juliet.” In Dodd’s entertaining retelling of Shakespeare's play, the tragic lovers survived their suicide attempts to marry and produce seven spirited children, headed by practical, level-headed Rosie. Despite the best efforts of her parents to marry off their eldest daughter, the clever Rosie has successfully fended off her potential suitors with a little matchmaking involving two younger sisters. Now almost 20, she’s content to remain a spinster and manage the Montague household, but alas her father receives a proposal he cannot turn down from the loathsome Duke Leir Stephano of the house of Creppa. Despite Rosie’s objections that the duke just buried his third wife, a betrothal ball is quickly organized. There the reluctant bride-to-be meet-cutes with an uninvited guest, the dazzlingly handsome Lysander, and stumbles upon the body of Duke Stephano with a dagger plunged into his chest. Suspicion falls on Rosie, even though Escalus, the brooding Prince of Verona, tries to protect her, and she must identify the killer before she becomes a victim. Dodd peppers her novel with plenty of Shakespearean references, making this more fan fiction than a true historical. The deliberate anachronisms (“I smiled a Mona Lisa smile”) will drive purists crazy, but most readers won't care. Dodd’s Verona is a mythical, timeless city where a spunky, independent young woman can enchant two different men. There is some YA appeal in Rosie’s character that will remind some readers of Karen Cushman’s Catherine, Called Birdy, but one of the protagonists takes an unbelievable 180-degree dark turn that will disappoint readers.

An open-ended conclusion leaves the door ajar for more mystery and romance.