Creative Reviews discussion

I have always maintained the idea that Romeo and Juliet one of Shakespeare's immortalized tragedies were immortalized solely due to the fact the it is a tragedy. If Romeo and Juliet had a happy ending things would have been different and this immortalized classic would have joined the ranks of many "Happily ever after" stories and long forgotten. Don't get me wrong, "Happily ever after" stories are my favorite kind. There is something about those three lines at the end of the story that makes you think of only the best possible future for the characters involved and makes you feel all happy and giddy inside. I am not a big fan of tragedies but William Shakesphere's "Romeo and Juliet" has a certain quality about it that makes you want to read it again and again. Knowing fully well that I am not going to get a happy ending and Romeo and Juliet are going to die in the end I can't help feeling or more correctly hoping that things would end differently each time I read. I keeping wishing that the messenger will reach Romeo in time or atleast he would wait a few more minutes until he drank the poison each and every time only to end in disappointment. But the uncanny thing is I wouldn't have it any other way. So when I first heard about this book I thought why not put my theory to test and conduct an experiment with this book which oddly enough drew its inspiration from this classic but has a chance of giving the whole story a different outcome. I will leave the discussion about the outcome there but one thing I have learned from this whole ordeal is it is not much about the outcome as the path that gets you there. When I started I was thinking of yet another love story with the heroine, namesake and descended of our late Bard's Juliet and her quest to find her Romeo and thus destined to play out a role the fates have inevitably cast on her. But what I got was so much more than that. It is not much of a love story as it is mystery. A mystery that involves secrets that are as old as 400 years. For one thing the book maintains that Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" are based on actual characters and the story took place in Siena rather that Verona. According to this there are not two but three feuding families and the story has not ended with the death of the two young lovers but have been carried on for generations eventually falling on our fated protogonist Julie Jones or more precisely Guliette Tolomei. Embarking on a quest to retrieve a lost treasure on the wish of her dying aunt little did Julie know that she is unwillingly becoming a pawn in an age old conspiracy and family feud at the heart of Sienna. Perplexed at first as to why her late mother and aunt wanted her to learn about her ancestors she decides to go along for the ride for the sake of her mother's last wish. But soon she realizes the more deep she gets in to the mystery surrounding her ancestor the more danger she is getting her self into and the only person that can save her is her beloved Romeo. More than being an reinterpretation of "Romeo and Juliet" the book was more along the lines of Da Vinci Code. With clues waiting to be deciphered at every turn and conspiracies waiting to be unmasked this book read like a fast paced thriller with its base rooted in history. The extent of research put in to make this interesting story is highly commendable. I was surprised to find that the author herself was not of Italian origin as the writing style and the description of the places suggested, which itself is admirable. In this book Sienna itself is a character as the others and makes you feel like you actually took a trip to Italy. Any one who enjoys winding up with a good book should not let this one go.