Bridge to Freedom Book

Told from Shakespeare's perspective, THE TWO LOVES... is an account of how he just happened to file two marriage license applications on consecutive days for two different women both named Anne. One Anne is rich, beautiful, noble, intelligent, the inspiration of his sonnets, and the former fiancee of his best friend. The other Anne is ugly, poor, ignorant, ill-mannered (of bad temperment) but willing to sneak out of the house at any time for arranged trysts in barns, fields, wherever. Will Shakespeare is portrayed by the author in such a way that he comes across to the reader--at least this reader--as a bumbling, fumbling, immature idiot. He is not clever. He is not charming. He is not romantic. He has absolutely no integrity. He steals at least half of his sonnets from his sister Joan who puts up with her brother the best she can knowing it's her lot in life to take care of stupid men. Shakespeare is shown as a conniving, selfish, uncaring man who steals his best friend's girl, who recklessly sleeps with any woman he can...and who feels no remorse when one of his former lovers commits suicide because she's pregnant with his child, and who does not care about hurting his family or his family's reputation because he knowingly violates the law throughout the book...sometimes getting caught, other times escaping just barely. It is hard as a reader to have any empathy at all for this character. This book would perhaps be better titled the Dumb and Reckless Mistakes of Will Shakespeare. Or perhaps The Lusty Will Shakespeare. Now all this being said, it is not a criticism of the WRITING of the novel. It is just one perspective of how these people might have lived and behaved. In my opinion, not a very beautiful or endearing perspective to hold but a possible realistic one.