Beatrice and Benedick

by Marina Fiorato

Hidden in the language of Shakespeare's best-loved comedy Much Ado About Nothing, are several clues to an intriguing tale. It seems that the witty lovers Beatrice and Benedick had a previous youthful love affair which ended bitterly. But how did they meet, why did they part, and what brought them together again?

Messina, Sicily, 1588. Beatrice of Mantua comes to the court of her uncle Leonato, to be companion to his daughter, Hero. That fateful summer, Spanish lordling Don Pedro visits for a month-long sojourn on the island with his regiment. In his company is the young soldier Benedick of Padua.

Benedick and Beatrice begin to wage their merry war of wit, which masks the reality that they dance a more serious measure, and the two are soon deeply in love. But the pair are cruelly parted by natural disaster and man-made misunderstanding. Oceans apart, divided by war and slander, Beatrice and Benedick begin their ten-year odyssey back to Messina and each other.

In a journey that takes us from sunlit Sicily to the crippled Armada fleet and from ancient superstition to the glorious Renaissance cities of the north, Marina Fiorato tells a story of intrigue, treachery and betrayal that will shed a new light on Shakespeare's most appealing lovers.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Romance, Fiction, Historical, Shakespeare, Retellings, Italy

438 pages, Hardcover

First published May 8, 2014

About the author

Marina Fiorato is half-Venetian. She was born in Manchester and raised in the Yorkshire Dales.

She is a history graduate of Oxford University and the University of Venice, where she specialized in the study of Shakespeare’s plays as an historical source.

After University she studied art and since worked as an illustrator, actress and film reviewer.

She also designed tour visuals for rock bands including U2 and the Rolling Stones.

She was married on the Grand Canal and lives in North London with her husband, son and daughter.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/marina...

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. It's perfectly ADEQUATE, but not something that will particularly stick with me. I think Fiorato tries to cram way too much into this novel--it's not just a backstory for Much Ado, it also encompasses the plots of Othello and Romeo and Juliet with an alternative-Shakespearean-authorship theory thrown in for good measure. Oh, and the Spanish Armada. There are so many balls in the air I think the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick suffers, and the depth of history that I was hoping to find between them, that is implied in the play, just absolutely falls short. As a straightforward piece of historical fiction I might have enjoyed it more; as a novel that is supposed to be centred on one of my favourite couples in literature, it was pretty slack.

And the Michelangelo Crollalanza theory is so crackpot I can't believe Fiorato threw it in there. But I'm one of those weirdos who thinks Shakespeare actually wrote Shakespeare, so what do I know.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this a bit of a slog to get through. I love Benedick and Beatrice from "Much Ado", but the protagonists of this book are much younger and much less witty. It also suffers from modern woman syndrome, the heroine is very 21st century. And the love scenes are terrible. Somewhat superior chick lit, but with little depth.

[Desiree · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars
This one really hurts.

SPOILERS AHEAD.



I LOVE Much Ado About Nothing. It is probably my favorite Shakespeare play, and I've liked the various film/web adaptations I've seen of it. When I read the synopsis of this adaptation, I was super excited. It is marketed as a prequel of sorts to the main action in MAAN. It's supposed to be a story about Beatrice and Benedick (hence the clever title 🙄) falling in love, having a misunderstanding and being separated, then coming back together. And technically, I suppose it does hit those plot points. But this book is a damn mess.

What I liked:

1. The concept. Like I said, the idea of a prequel for these two characters was super intriguing. It's pretty obvious in the text of the play that they have some history that goes unexplored.

2. The first 50(ish) pages. I thought this started very strong. I loved their first couple scenes together. Their flirty banter was so much fun and I was totally there for it. I also appreciated (in the beginning) the author's attempt to create more of a complex world.

What I didn't like:

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

1. The complete and utter bastardization of this story and it's characters.
I felt like the author hadn't even read the source material. The changes she made to the characters as far as their motivations and personalities didn't work at all for me. Don Pedro was completely butchered. He was not a villain. Yes, he made mistakes and let himself get swayed by his brother, but at his core he was an honorable man. This book turns him into a miserable person.
Also, the tone of this book is so off from what the story was supposed to be. MAAN is a comedy about misunderstandings and miscommunications. It's supposed to be light-hearted and farcical. True, there are some darker things happening that COULD have disastrous consequences, but the whole point is that at the end of the day everyone is okay...that all that misunderstanding was...much ado...about NOTHING. In this book, people are burned alive, dismembered, cannibalized, starved, gutted, poisoned, strangled, and commit suicide. Also a ship full of horses are pushed into the ocean to lighten up the ship.

2. Completely unnecessary sub-plots and filler.
I hated the subplots surrounding the Crollalanzas and all of the religious and political subplots. Also the entire section of Benedick and the other soldiers at sea was nearly unreadable for me. At the beginning, I appreciated that the author was trying to create a rich and full world, but it was just too much. I didn't pick this book up wanting an iffy history lesson. I wanted a romantic adaptation of MAAN...

3. Way too meta.
The first couple of times the author lifted lines from MAAN and used them in a different context in this book I thought it was somewhat clever. But she does it constantly throughout the book and even goes so far as to lift entire plot points and bring them into this story, which again, is supposed to be a PREQUEL to the action in MAAN.
Not only that, but there are countless not-so-subtle winks at other Shakespeare plays and writings peppered throughout the entire length of the book. This is not clever or cute. All it does is butcher more of Shakespeare's work. Then there is the character of Michelangelo, who the author tells us at the end is actually supposed to be Shakespeare. Give me a damn break.

4. There were almost no Beatrice and Benedick scenes, and the ones we got became incredibly repetitive. Again, I picked up this book because it was supposed to be a prequel focusing on Beatrice and Benedick's romance. But they spend more of the book apart than together. It's aggravating.



Other Thoughts

1. Typos.
I caught two typos as I read, and those were just the blatant ones that I saw. I will admit, I skimmed a good chunk of the middle, so it's highly possible there were more in there...

2. Sailors were starving on a ship but never once mention trying to fish.

3. Claudio is a little prick in this. His character was never my favorite, but his pomposity is truly annoying here.

4. Don John might as well not be in this book. They made Don Pedro the big-bad which makes zero sense. Then it was like the author didn't know how to get out of the corner she'd written herself into and so she tried to half-ass a redemption arc which didn't work because she'd spent nearly 400 pages cementing him as a giant dick.


I am so disgusted by this book. I know I'm forgetting some points, so this may get an edit at some point, but for now I just want to donate this piece of garbage book and move on with my life.

[Sandi *~The Pirate Wench~* · Rating 3 out of 5]

Setting: 16th Century Italy

One fateful summer, Beatrice of Mantua, along with her cousin Hero meet a soldier Benedick of Padua.
Beatrice and Benedick, play biting and bitter games of wits and words, though they aren't prepared to fall in love.
Tragically though. they are separated as Benedick goes off to War and Beatrice's family because of obligations send her to Verona and to an unwanted betrothal.
At here in the part of the story, she becomes involved with Romeo and Juliet.
Many years later Beatrice and Benedick are reunited and of course the story continues then as "Much to do about Nothing."
It takes these two on a new journey and allows them to find their own way to true love.
I had no idea that this was a take on a Shakespeare play titled "Much to do about Nothing"
I decided not to google info on it and just take it as it is.
The author did a good job of creating a "what-if?" A "prequel" if you will, to their story.
Beatrice and Benedick's story is filled with witty repartee, dark humour and adventure.
The author also incorporates other's such as Romeo and Juliet and the Bard himself.
III be honest, the book was OK, but it didn't wow me.
I certainly wont go out to get the play to read to see how it matches up.
But it was a delightful historical romp and it did add something like a breath of fresh air into an old classic I suppose.

[[ J o ] · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Copy courtesy of Hodder & Stoughton]

Hidden in the language of Shakespeare's best-loved comedy Much Ado About Nothing, are several clues to an intriguing tale. It seems that the witty lovers Beatrice and Benedick had a previous youthful love affair which ended bitterly. But how did they meet, why did they part, and what brought them together again?

I have no idea where to begin with this review, and each segment rendered such a difference of opinion that it's difficult to really justify any kind of rating, so I will start at the very beginning...


The start was a five-star beginning for me: it held me, captivated me and pulled me so close I thought perhaps, yes, this could be the one first-person narrated romance novel that I enjoy. Alas, it only held me for a few chapters, because it petered out and became quite a slow novel.

The layout is different yet similar: it is a novel with scenes, much like the play this is based on. Each chapter tells us whose Point of View it is: primarily it is Beatrice's, but occasionally we hear the inner-thoughts of Benedick. I have to say that I disliked this format at first but as we got through the story I felt it wasn't such a bad thing after all. I did not entirely see why we needed Benedick's P.O.V as Beatrice's would have sufficed and I did not feel that Benedick's voice was that true.

My main problem is that it is, in essence, Fan Fiction. I abhor Fan Fiction with an intense, fiery passion and I cannot really see past this book for what it actually is. It is based on two characters from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and, whilst it is its own book in its own right, it still contains a lot of that play within it for it to be nothing but Fan Fiction. I have, however, never read Much Ado About Nothing which probably helped me somewhat. There were also quotations from other Shakespeare plays (at one point Benedick says "Frailty thy name is woman") which was utterly annoying beyond belief. My Shakespeare knowledge is limited, and whilst I appreciate that the author studied him and obviously loves his work, this kind of blatant Fan Fiction ripping off left me feeling rather cheated.

The love story is familiar, yet different: I am not the biggest Romance, chick-lit or love-in-books fan because I've never found anyone who can really write about it without being soppy or teenager about it. I did, however, really enjoy this love story but I cannot accredit that to the author: I'm almost certain it will be Shakespeare's doing and therein lies the problem again.

The writing was magical, beautiful and captivating. As I said earlier, the first few chapters really drew me in and a part of that was the writing. It flowed like poetry and there was a lot of Shakespeare's capabilities in it. However, there were times when it felt slightly pretentious, because an overly eloquent word was used instead of a normal, boring everyday one that would have utterly sufficed. This infused in to the sentences ,too, and at times I just felt like I shouldn't be reading something like this because it's obviously only meant for learnéd scholars. There were also far too many typos for me to not mention it: usually there are one or two but here there were more than normal.

The middle was dragged out far too much and there were many times when I wished it would just end. I did find the ending to be adequate enough for the beginning and now I know that the ending of Beatrice & Benedick was basically the play Much Ado About Nothing it made it feel even more like I was being cheated. There were a few chapters, particularly concerning Benedick at sea, which I felt could have been condensed or removed altogether.

It is obviously written with a 21st Century mindset. As much as I wish I could believe that women from yesteryear were not all pathetic, twee little things, they were. Granted, some women were fiery, headstrong, had their own opinions and knew what they wanted, but they were few and far between. The people who were most against the Suffragette Movement were women. Therefore I can not think of this as any kind of Historical novel but instead a romantic view of what we wish our history was like.

It was not altogether overly humorous or witty, but it had it's moments. I love a great tête-à-tête and I really loved that Beatrice and Benedick here did not fall head over heels in love at first sight. It was lust at first sight, or fancy at first sight, but not love. That came as they got to know each other and, even though there was far too much description of their eye colour, it was far superior to the usual twee "his eyes were so deep and dark I fell in straight away" that I've read before. It had its droll moments, but for all that I enjoyed it. The sex scenes were, let's admit it now, as everyone else's sex scenes seems to be these days, in a word, pathetic.

I found it difficult to rate this book. Much like The Chimes from earlier in the year, it was quite up-and-down with some excellent parts, some terrible and some just so-so. My personal hatred of first-person narrative and fan fiction marred it slightly; I cannot take my own strong opinions completely out of it. It is more of a 2.5 star rating, though I have rounded up because the start of this book gave me the proof I needed that not all romance need be YA, twee, sickening, droll or utterly pathetic, but that some people out there can actually write romance and the spark of hope has been ignited. I will find a romance novel I can enjoy thoroughly one day.

I think, ultimately, there was just far too much happening here. It could have been shorter, but then it could have been longer. It was written magnificently, but at times it was too magnificent for what was being said. But all in all, I am utterly surprised at myself for saying this, I did enjoy it and I hope one day I will finally read a romance novel that I can truly love and I can honestly thank this book for that day.




Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest | Shop | Etsy

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me." These words are spoken by Beatrice near the beginning of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, when she is reunited with Benedick, a man whom it is hinted she had been romantically involved with in the past. Shakespeare never gives us any details of Beatrice and Benedick's history together and in this new novel, Marina Fiorato imagines how they may have met, what could have led to their separation and what brought them together again.

Well, this book was a surprise! I had expected a light, gentle romantic comedy, but what I got was an entertaining and often quite dark historical adventure novel filled with duels, pageants and puppet shows, sea voyages, mutinies and treasure troves. Like a play, the novel is divided into Acts and Scenes, each Scene narrated by either Beatrice or Benedick. The voices of the two narrators were very similar and I thought more effort could have been made to make them more distinctive, but otherwise I liked the way the novel was structured. I wondered whether Fiorato would be able to pull off the wars of words between Beatrice and Benedick, but I think she did this very well - although Benedick doesn't seem as quick-witted as Beatrice and usually comes off worst in their encounters.

I know there are some readers who are not interested in prequels, sequels or rewritings of any kind (and actually, I usually am one of those readers) but I enjoyed this one and thought it was very cleverly done, with Shakespeare's characters and storylines woven perfectly into the history of the period. There are also some elements and characters from other plays, most notably Othello and Romeo and Juliet. Fiorato even manages to incorporate Shakespeare himself into the novel - if you're not already aware of the theories connecting Shakespeare with Sicily I'll leave you to find out for yourself!

You don't really need to be familiar with Much Ado About Nothing as this book does work as a straightforward historical fiction novel, but you will get more out of it if you do read (or watch) the play either before you start or after you finish. As for the historical aspects of the novel, it was interesting to learn about Spanish-ruled Sicily and the fate of the Moors who lived there. I also loved all the beautiful descriptions of both Messina and Verona. I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would!

[SBF · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is well-written. It's just so awful in terms of being based on "Much Ado About Nothing". The two lead characters, who in their original Shakespeare play are clever, interesting, and likable, here are turned into idiots to make the plot work. As a stand-alone historical novel about the Spanish invasion of England, and racism against people of African descent in Sicily, it would do very well. Backstory is great, it's what I was looking for when I picked up the book. But I just couldn't buy this backstory in terms of believing it could lead to the story of Much Ado About Nothing. What was up with making Don Pedro the villain? Don John barely appears in the story, and he's the one who's the bad guy in the play. Shakespeare's Beatrice is born to speak "all mirth and no matter" and there is a "merry war of words" between her and Benedick. Hardly any of that is in this book. Pulling Beatrice into the story of Romeo and Juliet as a side story was unnecessary and only moderately interesting. She winds up being indirectly responsible for Juliet's suicide. And her obsession with a character clearly meant to be Othello got tiresome after awhile. Lastly, there's a character named Michelangelo Crollalanza in this book, and when I realized who he was meant to be I pretty much gave up on the story. The author and I fall on opposite sides of the authorship question.

[Kristen McDermott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A historical romp that is not only well-written but delightfully clever in the way it weaves Shakespearean characters into the fabric of 16th-century history. Fiorato has come up with a plausible way to place the beloved tale of the battling lovers into a rich historical context, and has created two appealing characters at the same time. The story alternates between Beatrice's and Benedick's points of view in a well-constructed way, and the narrative hints at the complexities of Spanish and Italian politics without getting bogged down. A fun - and unpredictable - experience for Shakespeare fans.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an incredibly clever novel charting the entire relationship of Beatrice and Benedick, from Much ado, from there first meeting till their marriage at the end if much ado.
There were lots of references to other Shakespeare plays and there is a 'Shakespeare' character that is based on a real person, that some people from Sicily believe to be the real Shakespeare.
I found all of the back stories interesting and loved learning about the background of Spanish occupation. At the end if the novel I would like to have seen more of the original play.

[Moony (Captain Mischief) MeowPoff · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like it, i really did.
I liked the start of it, Bendik and Beatrice seemed like interesting characters.
But it all was a yawn, i skimmed the last pages just to be done with it..

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

You are only in the middle of your story. Who knows how it will end? No one knows if they play in a comedy or tragedy until the final curtain. The ending is the thing. pg.122

A quick look at my bookshelves and you will clearly see that Marina Fiorato is one of my favorite authors and I enjoy all my literary "trips" to Italy's past with the locations and characters that she presents. With Beatrice and Benedick I found myself in very unfamiliar territory as Fiorato draws her characters from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. However, once I began to read the story from the viewpoints of both characters it really wasn't a problem. Before too long, I felt that I was seeing a play unfold before me with a cast of fantastic characters.

I can only speak like an honest man and a soldier. But I can speak of love too. pg 141

Action, Romance, Italy and Shakespeare! Heaven in the form of a book!

Goodreads review published 16/04/20

[Mark Iliff · Rating 2 out of 5]

There can come a point in any will-they-won’t-they story when you find yourself screaming “just get on with it!” It’s worse when you know the outcome from another source. And it’s terrible when it happens less than half the way through: I have stopped reading this on page 196 (out of 439).

Which is a pity, really, because the idea of the book is wonderful: take the well known story of Much ado about nothing and play it out through the first-person accounts of the main protagonists. There is no room in Shakespeare’s play for the tensions between the nobles of Sicily and their imperial masters Spain, between the Moors & the first settlers, and between the aristocrats & the common people. Together they make a fascinating study, much richer than the romcom you might expect.

I do hope I manage to finish this book one day, and will update my review if necessary when I do.

May 2017
So I did come back and finish it, and discovered why the book seemed so much longer than the story: the action actually takes place before the Shakespeare play, and the couple spend a year apart doing other things before returning to Sicily – clever!. Full marks for ambition, but the story seems contrived of too many coincidences and improbabilities in service of the final reveal: that the Moorish poet turns out to be William Shakespeare, that well known Sicilian, who harvests large chunks of Beatrice’s life for his later plays.

One part of the story involves seafaring, and here the infelicities come thick and fast, and too embarrassing to pass over. The author acknowledges that she needed help with this, but the help she needed was much greater than the help she got.

All in all, ambitious but flawed.

[Wendy Jones]

I loved the idea of this book and the start was great. I thought the way the author wrote was very in-keeping with what I would hope for from an endeavour like this. It was probably my own fault in choosing it. I loved the love story of Much Ado, but of course this cannot have the same and I'm afraid I lost interest part way in. Recommended for others, just not for me.

[Pie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Much Ado About Nothing is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays; I've watched the 1993 movie, a local Shakespeare in the Park, and the 2011 version with David Tennant and Catherine Tate (anyone who is a fan of the play and hasn't seen that version should, it's SO funny and the costumes are WILD). I've also read several retellings of it, though all of them only covered the events of the play. However, there are a lot of hints that the antagonistic relationship between Beatrice and Benedick is caused by a failed relationship prior the play, and this is the first retelling I've seen that explored that. Although I liked the idea, there were a few things that I found annoying.
What I liked:
–I think this did a pretty good job of capturing the voices of the two characters as two clever, sarcastic people who had met their match. For example, Beatrice's first conversation with Benedick involves her dragging him for not having a job.
–There's also a scene where Beatrice disguises herself as a man and challenges Benedick to a duel during a tourney, which was a lot of fun.
–I liked the shout-outs to other Shakespeare plays. In this version, Beatrice is the daughter of Prince Escalus of Verona, Benedick mentions having a friend who is clearly Sebastian from Twelfth Night, Elsinore and Wittenberg University are mentioned, and there are two characters who are obviously based off of Othello and Desdemona. It was fun spotting the references and seeing how they played into the story.
–This book also introduced me to the kind of wild Crollalanza theory, which is that Shakespeare was actually an Italian immigrant named Michelangelo Crollalanza, who appears in the story. Apparently it's not a commonly supported theory but I still thought it was interesting and there are certainly a lot of strange coincidences (for example, Crollalanza literally translates as "shake-spear").
–There are a lot of other events happening besides romance and miscommunication. There's a lot about Spanish and Sicilian politics, the expulsion of Moors from Spain, and the disastrous Spanish Armada, which made the story feel more grounded in history.
–I liked the motif of Beatrice and Benedick passing a particular playing card back and forth.
–The writing was very atmospheric and I felt like I could really picture all of the locations the characters traveled to, from Messina to Verona to even the coast to Scotland.
Dislikes, AKA mostly griping about changes to the original play
–I get that Beatrice and Benedick had to break up at some point prior to the play, but the reasons felt very contrived and full of miscommunication. Both characters immediately assume the worst about the other and don't bother talking it out.
–I get the feeling that this author really did not like the character of Don Pedro, who is made to be even more of a villain than Don John. He maliciously sabotages the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick out of jealously, and also makes several cowardly decisions during the Spanish Armada section that lead to a lot of deaths. The play already has a villain, you don't need another one!
–Unfortunately, Beatrice and Benedick having met before the events of the play means that I was robbed of the hilarious scenes where they eavesdrop on other characters who are trying to get them together.
–I didn't think it made a lot of sense for Hero and Claudio to have met before because I'm pretty sure it said they hadn't. Plus, the scene where Don Pedro pretends to be Claudio while wooing Hero doesn't work very well if that's the case.
–There's a big chunk of the book in the middle where Beatrice and Benedick are separated that's kind of boring. Things are happening, but you can tell that the author's just biding her time until they meet again.
–I thought it was too bad Dogberry and Verges were cut because they're kind of entertaining.
–At one point it implies that Beatrice accidentally kickstarts the final events of Romeo and Juliet by suggesting her cousin Giulietta marrying a guy called Paris but we never get to find out if it plays out in the same way.
End verdict: I liked the idea of this book and I thought it was a clever extension of a well-known play but I thought some of the changes and the way the author went about them were annoying. Overall, my love for this play and the characters is so great that I did end up enjoying this, though!

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this along with Much Ado About Nothing. It was fun to compare them. I also enjoyed the references to other Shakespeare characters and storylines.

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was expecting Much Ado About Nothing fanfiction, and was totally here for it. But this was actually a fascinating and dramatic read about the world of Beatrice and Benedick before they met (again) one summer in Sicily. Loved it!!

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

(I haven't finished reading this yet, but wanted to get my thoughts down before I forget them. My review may change as I continue to read.)

This book has a fascinating premise: not only to tell the story of what might have happened to set Beatrice and Benedick against each other in Much Ado about Nothing, but to place them firmly in a specific time and place, whose mores influence the way events ultimately play out. Specifically, the book starts and most of the events take place in 1588, the year King Philip II of Spain sent an armada against the Protestant Queen Elizabeth in hopes of regaining England for Catholicism (among other motivations, obvs.)

In some respects the book succeeds admirably. Claudio is now a Medici; Don Pedro is one of Philip's lackeys; Beatrice is a young woman of fortune, especially after her older brother dies, and Benedick is perhaps setting his sights too high in pursuing her. Greater complexity in characters' backgrounds and motivations makes for an intriguing play (ha) on the original. (To the best of my knowledge, none of this stuff is mentioned in the play; the only thing alluded to is a past acquaintance between B&B.)

Two places in which it doesn't work, however, are detailed below.

1) Faithfulness to the original story.
This mostly comes out in the characters' personalities; Don Pedro in this book is a callous dick, and you don't understand why Benedick and Claudio would follow him to Leonato's in Much Ado, let alone seemingly respect him. By contrast, Claudio here is a confident, self-possessed young man and it's hard to imagine him turning into the sniveling wimp we see in Much Ado. (Hero is a bland placeholder of a character... much like she is in Much Ado. Fine.)

2) Authentic expansion on the original story.
By contrast, the plot hews FAR too closely to the original. This story is a prequel - it's supposed to take place ten years prior to Much Ado. And yet it takes its central conflict from that story: a man thinking his lover was unfaithful, after his supposed friend fools him into seeing her in another man's arms. Wouldn't someone... notice? Also, at the halfway point of the book, Beatrice had made the "dog bark at a crow" reference three times. THREE TIMES. Yes, it's a good line. That doesn't mean it should be a catchphrase. I wonder how someone not familiar with the play would take these similarities - maybe they wouldn't even register. But presumably the main audience for the book is fans of the play?

Neither here nor there: Romeo and Tybalt show up, and Mercutio is alluded to. Oh, and Othello and Desdemona have a cameo, too. I'm not sure yet how I feel about this.

[Jaffareadstoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm ashamed to say that I am not overly familiar with Shakespeare's excellent play, Much Ado About Nothing, on which this book is based, but perhaps that's a good thing, as isn't always advisable to have something so familiar used in a different way. I am sure that the purists who prefer their Shakespeare unadulterated will perhaps be rather more critical of this interpretation, as inevitably, there is something of a modern feel to the both the narrative and the dialogue, which would never be found in sixteenth century prose. However, this isn't a retelling of the Shakespeare's play in its entirety, it's more of a look back at the earlier lives of Beatrice and Benedick and about what shaped their personalities.

It took a little while to relax into the story as there's the inevitable scene setting, and a whole array of characters who need to make sense. I'm pleased to say, though, that here is a good dramatis personnae at the start of the novel, which is helpful as it lists the main characters and their relationships to each other. I liked the way that the story was divided into acts and scenes rather like a play. This author's work is something that I am familiar with having read some of her other books, and as always I am drawn towards her skillful writing and how she allows the history of the time to shine through. She writes with confidence and passion, bringing to life, the sunlit beauty of Sicily and the imagined love story between Beatrice and Benedick is entirely convincing.

As always by the end of a Marina Fiorato novel I feel like I have travelled to a beautiful place. Her descriptions of Sicily are evocatively rich in detail and such a feast for the imagination that the story lingers on, even when the last page is turned.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I expected this book to be a light-hearted, fun, re-telling of Much Ado About Nothing. But is so much more.
Fiorato creates a rich novel, weaving together history, Shakespearean stories including Othello and Romeo and Juliet, and even alternative history suggestions, which all come together to give context and depth to the well-known story of Much Ado.
Beatrice is sent from her home in northern Italy to say with her mother's sister and family on Sicily. Soon after her arrival, her uncle has more visitors: a Spanish prince, who has Count Claudio and Lord Benedict among his retinue. The reader soon discovers that Don Pedro is not merely making a social call but has a very specific agenda while on the island, made in order to serve his king.
Leonato, Beatrice's uncle is trapped between duty to the spanish overlords, and his own Sicilian people.
This only taps the surface of the complex plot. Some may be disappointed that Fiorato's focus goes far beyond Benedick and Beatrice, Claudio and Hero, but I found the depth to be informative and compelling and will think of the play in new light because of it.

[Miriam Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The play Much Ado About Nothing is in my top 3 favourite Shakespeare plays, mainly because it is so hilarious. Two of the characters that make it so funny are Beatrice and Benedick, and the witty banter exchanged between them. I'm never really sure whether or not these characters were ever meant to be supporting characters or not, but they are definitely, for me, the two characters that I was the most interested in. So naturally when I picked up this book up at a little bookshop in Ireland, I was excited to see an expansion of their story.

It did not disappoint. This beautifully written book added a whole new dimension to the original material. Beatrice and Benedick takes an in depth look behind the mask of Shakespeare's comedy, and shows the grim realities and turmoil that would have gone in their lives at that time.

This book had me swooning at some points, and holding my breath at others. Sometimes shocking, but always intelligent, this book is delight for any Shakespeare fan. You will never be able to look at these characters the same way again!

[Zion Shields · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think that this monologue was great and very interesting.
I took the time to learn at least 15 lines of this monologue because I enjoy the way this is presented and I took the time to memorize about 16 lines of this monologue. I'm Sure people who enjoy reading would enjoy reading this monologue. the imagery and use of words is very impacked on the climax. I took the time to memorize 15 lines of Benedick and it's, I think the best parts of the monologue.
In the beginning of monologue benedick is confused about love and is not interested and creates all these excuses about why he can't love, but as the story progresses he gives up and says if love shall take me It'll turn me into an oyster. He also says " may I be so converted and see with these eye's , I Cannot tell. Love wins the battle at the end and Benedick gets married to a beautiful woman named Beatrice.
Benedick is a bachelor by the way, well until he met Beatrice.

[Terelyn Marks · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the beginning of Much Ado About Nothing, it is obvious that Beatrice and Benedick know each other and have had an acrimonious relationship. How did they meet? What happened between them? Why did they part?

What brings them together again?

Marina Fiorato's book tells the back-story of Beatrice and Benedick and answers those questions. There are also references to some of Shakespeare's other plays throughout the story, which add a delightful depth to it.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book creates a backstory for Beatrice and Benedick of Much Ado About Nothing. References to other Shakespeare plays are woven throughout and the Italian Shakespeare features as a friend of Beatrice. Well written and compelling.

[Library of Dreaming (Bookstagram) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a fan of Much Ado About Nothing and when I first read it I was deeply intrigued by Shakespeare's hinting that Beatrice and Benedick had a ~past with one another before the opening of the play. Beatrice and Benedick seeks to answer that question with a very clever prequel/reimagining. It did not fit entirely with my personal headcanon, but it is engaging and fun to read. Marina Fiorato is obviously very passionate about her subject and injects a surprising amount of Italian history into the novel. She fleshes out the setting into a rich tapestry of historical life with a thought-provoking amount of gender and racial politics thrown in. Instead of just a simple romance, there is quite a bit of plot including a connection to the Spanish Armada and the Spanish occupation of Sicily. I was also surprised and intrigued by the author's integration of a couple other Shakespearean plays and her interpretation and portrayal of Shakespeare himself. (One unfortunate thing: the very first scene is Beatrice witnessing Othello and Desdemona having sex on the beach which almost made me put down the book forever. Thankfully, that was as graphic as the book got. Still, it was super awks.)

Sometimes directly quoting the play, Fiorato manages to capture the original wit of Beatrice and Benedick's romance even if some of the misunderstandings are toned down. Beatrice is a sometimes frustrating but understandable character and this book gave me new love for Benedick. He is quite precious even while being annoying. Also, there are a decent amount of intriguing secondary characters. Some new characters are introduced and some old characters are fleshed out. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Don Pedro in the original play and many adaptions but in this book Fiorato has transformed him into an out and out villain. It does add depth to the tale but I wasn't particularly pleased about it.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Not only is it a fairly clever reimagining of Shakespeare but it's also a complex and interesting book in its own right. I may not agree with all of its suppositions, but I enjoyed it a lot. It was certainly more richly layered and thoughtful than I expected! Not bad for a supposedly fluffy YA novel...

[Danae · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is as beautiful as the cover and I’m kind of kicking myself for having this on my TBR shelf for over two years.
To be honest, I was daunted by this book because the whole thing is “we know how it ended but how did it begin”. As someone who never knew about the play Much Ado About Nothing those two lines at the front of the cover had me in a panic. I bought the book because of the cover.
The writing is beautiful as the cover, but if I had not read the cliff notes of the play I probably would have been lost.
I loved the banter between Beatrice and Benedick although I understood about maybe half of what they were saying to each other. (Honestly, sometimes it feels like you need an encyclopedia to decipher what is being said, but I feel like that with any play from Shakespeare).
I really want to read the play Much Ado About Nothing now because I want to see if Beatrice is as headstrong as she is in the book. I loved Beatrice she reminds me of Cathrine from Taming of the Shrew except she holds onto her morals. Benedick I don’t know whether to hug him or shake him because sometimes he was a little too quick to trust the word of someone else then let the person accused explain what he saw, but he did have a heart of gold. He was definitely not made to be a solider;)
Overall the book was better than I expected and I loved the cross over of Romeo and Juliet in the book, not sure if that happens in the play?
4.5 out of 5 stars.

[Danya · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ~ 4 stars. As a story I found it quite rich and immersive; as a retelling/expansion of Much Ado I found it less satisfying. Benedick’s voice was believable as the original character, but this version of Beatrice did not capture the wit and energy of Shakespeare’s heroine. I also did not get the same sort of humour from it as the original play; there is far more tragedy than comedy here, and although both protagonists kept mentioning their “witty banter” I didn’t feel like we actually saw it. Their relationship starts and proceeds rather oddly, with an initial attraction on both sides which quickly becomes somewhat antagonistic for no clear reason. The misunderstandings that serve to separate the couple are truly Shakespearean in style, though.

That said, I liked how elements of Othello and Romeo & Juliet were woven into the story, enriching it with characters and plot points from these other Shakespearean works, which lent this expansion some authenticity. The writing allows the reader to easily visualize the settings, from the dunes of Messina to the despair-filled days on the open ocean. The hints in Shakespeare’s original play about Beatrice and Benedick’s history make this a storyline just waiting to be explored; however, this realization of that mystery is not what I had expected (or probably would have chosen, to be honest.)

The afterword sheds some light on one of the side characters and informs the reader of an intriguing theory about Shakespeare that I had never heard of! This also helps to clarify some of the choices made in this retelling.

[Lise · Rating 3 out of 5]

For anybody who loves Much Ado About Nothing and is quite familiar with Shakespeare, both Fiorato's pedantic need to make allusions to other plays at often the most awkward places or moments (Othello in Sicily, a little of touch of Harry in the night spoken on a ship by a character who is exact opposite Henry V) and the way she mishandled Shakespeare's characters (Don Pedro is the best example, but also a very plain Juliet, Tibalt as a kind of hooligan who keeps getting involved in street brawls, etc.) means that this book is often rather annoying. The story keeps you going, even if it is more Pride and Prejudice than anything to do with the Renaissance sensibility or story telling (a period which Fiorato clearly doesn't understand). The book also lack the humour of the original, and her story doesn't fit in with the play, so she goes through some rather dubious convolutions in order to get her characters where Much Ado starts. So anybody unfamiliar with the play will enjoy this book, but not so much fans of Shakespeare's Beatrice and Benedict.

[Cara Ince · Rating 2 out of 5]

Now, I love Much Ado About Nothing. It is my favourite play, the Branagh film is the best Shakespeare adaptation around and I am currently writing my dissertation on evolving female agency in adaptations of the play. This is how I ended up reading this book but it had been on my list for a very long time. I wish I had never picked it up.

For starters, there is just far too much crammed into this book. Fiorato does not just reference Much Ado but there is Othello, Romeo and Juliet and so much that even I lost track. Sometimes, it is just a fleeting comment, one that you might not even pick up on. There is even the outlandish theory that William Shakespeare was not English thrown in there, the idea that he came from Italy and changed his name, writing his plays based on experiences from his life. Whilst it is not unbelievable to say that he went to Italy during the lost years, to suggest that the man who has so much evidence of his life here in England is ridiculous and frankly, borderline offensive.

I think that there was so much beautiful potential with this book, Fiorato could have told a tale of budding love and changing feelings but instead, decided to change the play itself and the characters as well as events. She changes so much of Shakespeare's original work, it can hardly be called his anymore. It could be considered shameful concerning everything that he wrote and produced. Someone who loves Shakespeare could never soil his name in this way, not without some agitations against him.

I think I am so upset because of how much I love this story and how much I love these characters that some of these changes are so unbearable to me. There was so much potential and she squandered it away. My takeaway from this is that she too considers the Branagh film to be the definitive adaptation. It's just a shame she decided to divert from that too.

[Rachel Glass · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pleasant retelling of one of my favourite Shakespeare comedies, 'Much Ado About Nothing' from the perspectives of my favourite pair of lovers. The positives: the writing style and historical accuracy rang true throughout; the new storyline deepened the light-hearted play and added some shade; Beatrice's proto-feminism was developed in what I felt was a believable way; the incorporation of aspects of Othello and Romeo and Juliet were convincing and not intrusive.

Less good: I quite like Don Pedro and this book doesn't (on the whole); I personally find 'who was the real Shakespeare?' conspiracy theories a bit annoying; Beatrice and Benedick themselves just didn't crackle off the page for me here the way they do in the play; the character of Hero and her relationship with Beatrice was severely underdeveloped; the writing was a bit florid in places. Most of this is just my personal preference though!

[Rain On · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very pleasant read. Beatrice and Benedick are both very pleasant to follow. Some fetishism around the "Moors", from angles that reflect the plays, but each character feels like they are given the chance they deserve to deploy and exhibit their own sense of agency, good and bad. Beatrice's plotline is wonderfully executed, and Benedick and his gallery of costumes are also really nice to follow.
I really loved the epilogue, because after Imogen's death I really worried for Hero. The final play-within-a-play and its consequences let her rise above, and Beatrice fully took on the leadership role she so richly deserved.
All in all, a delight for all fans of Shakespeare.
Not really convinced, however, that we needed to get into the Shakespeare theory. Anything that implies the "poor" Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon couldn't possibly have written our most famous plays smells of classism and taints a character that was amazing on his own.