Shakespeare's women novels

Anne Hathaway is weighing her prospects for marriage when a dalliance with young Will Shakespeare, the poetry-writing son of a rural glove- maker, leaves her pregnant and wed. When Will joins a traveling acting troupe and moves to London, Anne leaves their children in his parents' care and boldly follows him.
Taking up a new identity at Will's side, Anne supports his career as a struggling actor by sewing costumes and transcribing manuscripts in the rough-and-tumble world of London's theatres. As Will finds his true calling in writing, Anne's own literary skills begin to flower, leading to a secret collaboration that makes Will the foremost playwright in Elizabethan England.

The daughter of a Venetian musician, Aemilia Bassano came of age in Queen Elizabeth's royal court. The Queen's favorite, she develops a love of poetry and learning, maturing into a young woman known not only for her beauty but also her sharp mind and quick tongue. Aemilia becomes the mistress of Lord Hunsdon, but her position is precarious. Then she crosses paths with an impetuous playwright named William Shakespeare and begins an impassioned but ill-fated affair.
A decade later, the Queen is dead, and Aemilia Bassano is now Aemilia Lanyer, fallen from favor and married to a fool. Like the rest of London, she fears the plague. And when her young son Henry takes ill, Aemilia resolves to do anything to save him, even if it means seeking help from her estranged lover, Will—or worse, making a pact with the Devil himself.
In rich, vivid detail, Sally O'Reilly breathes life into England's first female poet, a mysterious woman nearly forgotten by history. Full of passion and devilish schemes, Dark Aemilia is a tale worthy of the Bard.

The real Aemilia Basano Lanyer was Renaissance woman, centuries ahead of her time. England's first professionally-published female poet, she is also suspected to have inspired the poetry of one our greatest and most beloved writers, William Shakespeare—and she continues to inspire writers to this day.
With Dark Aemilia, Sally O'Reilly gives us a richly imagined novel of this mysterious, and nearly forgotten, woman, and now, she invites us to discover Ameilia Lanyer first-hand. A collection of Shakespeare's famed "Dark Lady" sonnets; fascinating and hard-to-find historical details; and Aemilia's own provocative poetry, as well as exclusive excerpts from the novel; Shakespeare's Dark Lady is a must-read for poetry lovers and the ideal companion to Sally O'Reilly's stunning debut—a novel "filled with all the passion, drama, and magic of Elizabethan England" (Paula Brackston, New York Times bestselling author of The Witch's Daughter and The Midnight Witch).

Aemilia Bassano Lanier is beautiful and accomplished, but her societal conformity ends there. She frequently cross-dresses to escape her loveless marriage and to gain freedoms only men enjoy—and then a chance encounter with a ragged, little-known poet named Shakespeare changes everything. 
The two outsiders strike up a literary bargain: they leave plague-ridden London for Italy, where they begin secretly writing comedies together and where Will falls in love with the beautiful country—and with Aemilia, his Dark Lady. Their Italian idyll, though, cannot last. Will gains fame and fortune for their plays back in London and years later publishes the sonnets mocking his former muse. Not one to stand by in humiliation, Aemilia takes up her own pen in her defense, and in defense of all women.

As historical records show, Anne Whateley of Temple Grafton was betrothed to William Shakespeare just days before he was forced to wed the pregnant Anne Hathaway.
Here, Anne Whateley takes up her pen to tell the intimate story of her daring life with Will. Obliged to acknowledge Will's publicly sanctioned marriage, Anne Whateley nevertheless follows him from rural Stratford-Upon-Avon to teeming London, where they honor their secret union, the coming together of two passionate souls. Persecution and plague, insurrection and inferno, friends and foes all play parts in Anne's lively tale.
Spanning half a century of Elizabethan and Jacobean history, and sweeping from the lowest reaches of society to the royal court, this richly textured novel tells the real story of Shakespeare in love.