Jessica Barksdale Inclán

The Play's The Thing

You've Never Met This Shakespeare...

We've always known William Shakespeare, but not this fellow, one down-on-his luck playwright needing a helping hand from the future.

One evening when helping a colleague stage The Merchant of Venice, English professor Jessica Randall slides momentarily back to 1598. Later that night, she lands for good in the chambers of the man she's been studying and teaching for years.

His biggest problem of late has been a non-stop stream of Jessicas apparating into his chambers nightly. Yet Jessica's appearance halts the visitations, though neither have a clue why. Can she get back to 2018? They don't know that either, and together they begin to craft a life together, all the while trying to break the time travel curse and avoid falling in love.

As time-traveling Jessica grapples with practical (what is and how does one put on a farthingale?) and emotional (how to risk your heart when everything might disappear in an instant?) aspects of adapting to Elizabethan London, she must try to solve the mystery of the other Jessicas. More importantly, she must figure out how to get home without suffering from the broken heart she knows she can't avoid.

Despite being thwarted at every turn, Jessica manages to navigate her new world and her old one and save not only herself but Will Shakespeare and his legacy.

“A rich blend of fantasy, farce and spot-on history, The Play's the Thing is a joyous journey through time, place, and the universal complexity of the human heart. A delightful marriage of Peggy Sue Got Married and Shakespeare in Love—a celebration not to be missed.”

- Warren Read, author of Ash Falls and One Simple Thing

"Interlacing Shakespearean lore, a rom-com, and the time-space continuum into a single book . . . "The Play's the Thing" is a fun addition to the "reimagining the Bard" genre. And be assured, it does end well."

- Amy Wang, The Oregonian

"Fans of the swashbuckling, time-traveling “Outlander” books or TV series are sure to enjoy this similarly unpredictable visit to Shakespeare’s England: a place and time teeming with comedy and tragedy, snappy dialog and serious observation, unrequited passion and candlelit encounters with the world’s sexiest playwright."

- Scott Hewitt, The Columbian

"Jessica Barksdale Inclan approaches her main character’s dilemma...with a deliciously light touch. The dialogue sparkles, Jessica’s struggles and flaws never fail to ring true, and the contrast between her unmistakably modern views and Will Shakespeare’s Elizabethan take on life are simultaneously revealing and thought-provoking. If you’re looking for a scientific explanation of time travel (assuming that such a thing exists), you won’t find it here, but the novel is, in every respect, a fun read. It will stay with you long after you reach the end."

- C.P. Lesley, New Books Network

"We are privy to this great writer’s human side, his sorrows and longings as Inclán, like the bard, taps the complexities of the human heart...an engaging read."

- Gail M. Murray, Historical Novel Society

Column

The hardest sweet is sharp to the tongue, painful, cutting, and often divine. The poems in Jessica Barksdale’s poetry collection Grim Honey follow thin paths of grief, up through steep switchbacks and down the rocky declines into the meadows, where for a moment, we can pause and remember before moving on. The speakers in these poems open to their sorrows and passions and then push forward into stories that—while understood—are still evolving. Barksdale moves through issues of family, love, and death, delving into what is beautiful as completely as what is not to show the fullness of life.

"Grim Honey explores the messiness of the human body and a constellation of losses. Barksdale writes with great verve and energy about every subject from family to travel to death. There’s an urgency to these poems, a persistence in all things, whether it’s the writing itself or the cataloguing of the world’s beauties and tragedies. She knows how to turn a curse into a benediction, an old kitchen into the site of new memories, each pain into the story of a deeply lived life."

- Traci Brimhall, author of Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod and Rookery

"Grim Honey is about what awaits when we examine our lives and remember that they are, inextricably, always our own."

- Darien Hsu Gee, author of Other Small Histories

News

	Revolute Lit nominates Alice Takes Her Mother to a Funeral for the 2021 Best of the Net prize
	Grim Honey a distinguished Favorite in the NYC Big Book Award
	The Play's the Thing reviewed by the Historical Novel Society
	A few thoughts about Shakespeare in Writer's Digest.
	More News >>

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