All Night Awake [Hardcover]

Sarah A. Hoyt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2002

Both William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe were given their creative spark in the world of the faerie, where they each loved the Lady Silver. But now Lady Silver, who loves them both still, has come to London to track down a creature of supernatural might and vaulting ambition-and it is about to put both the Bard and his rival in grave danger.

With the same blend of romance and magic that made Ill Met By Moonlight "a delightful fantastic speculation" (Booklist), Sarah Hoyt offers a new novel about the greatest playwright of all time-and the passions that inspired him.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The adventures of the Elizabethan teacher and poet Will Shakespeare continue in All Night Awake, the sequel to Sarah A. Hoyt's debut novel, Ill Met by Moonlight. Seeking his fortune, young Will has come to London, but his only fate looks to be death, by either starvation or plague. All hope seems lost--then Will meets Kit Marlowe, the most acclaimed playwright of the age. Marlowe offers to help Will find work on the stage, and Will accepts, never dreaming that Marlowe is a treacherous tool of Queen Elizabeth's secret agents. Will believes his fortune has turned--until his Dark Lady, Silver, the ruler of Elvenland, finds him. Believing she seeks only to seduce him away from his wife, Will sends Lady Silver away. He refuses to believe her story that the plague afflicting London is caused by her villainous brother. But Silver speaks the truth. Her brother, the ex-king of Elvenland, seeks vengeance on those who overthrew him: the Lady Silver and her ex-lover, the mortal Will Shakespeare.

Like its prequel, All Night Awake is a suspenseful and entertaining fantasy. However, you probably shouldn't read this series if you don't like the idea of Shakespeare as a character in fiction, or if you don't want to see any fantastic explanations of Shakespeare's staggering talent. --Cynthia Ward

From Publishers Weekly

In this ingenious but plodding historical fantasy, a sequel to Ill Met by Moonlight (2001), in which a young William Shakespeare had to cope with the supernatural, Will has failed to make any mark as a poet, until he is taken up by flamboyantly successful wordsmith Christopher Marlowe. Regrettably, Marlowe is also a frightened secret agent who is desperate enough to save his own neck by implicating naive Will in a fake plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. In Fairyland, meanwhile, the spirit of the murderous elf Sylvanus, having escaped captivity, heads for London with a plan to reshape reality under his eternal rule. The elf king, Quicksilver ("Silver" when in his female aspect), also races to London, where he tries to get the help of his/her former lovers, Will and Kit, in averting magical disaster-if the parties involved can trust or even listen to each other. A fine plot, however, suffers from flaws in execution. For one thing, the supernatural machinery is unfamiliar enough to require intrusive explanations that seem improvised for the author's convenience. For another, bland presentation undercuts the supposedly dramatic events. In particular, the frequent Shakespearean quotations, spoken here by Marlowe, make an unfortunate contrast with Hoyt's own serviceable but earthbound prose. Writing about both Shakespeare and the supernatural, as Neil Gaiman does so well in his Sandman saga, requires a bit more magic. Fans of the first book, though, won't be disappointed.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Ace Hardcover; 1 edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441009735
• ISBN-13: 978-0441009732
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,832,402 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Portugal far more years ago than I like to admit to, in a -- then very small -- place called Granja (lugar da Granja -- lugar possibly transtating roughly as hamlet -- but literally translating as "place") in the freguesia (allegiance/fiefdom) of Aguas-Santas (Holy Waters) in the Conselho (council) of Maia in the district of Porto.

All those designations are changed now, but as I like to tell people I grew up somewhere between Elizabethan England and Victorian England with just a little of the twentieth century thrown in.

This might be exaggerating -- not much -- but the truth is that I did go to a village school and learn to write with a quill pen. Though I used ballpoint pens at home. I penned my first "novel" with ballpoint at around the age of six. And since it was pretty easy -- all twenty pages of Enid Blyton rip-off -- I abandoned what I (by then) suspected was an unattainable aspiration of becoming an angel when I grew up. I decided instead to be a novelist.

Once this was decided, of course, it didn't take all that long at all. Only some... cough... twenty years, during which I acquired a degree from the University of Porto (where we didn't use quill pens), found that employment for English majors was at best scant, moved to the US, changed my name, got married, worked at a variety of jobs from multilingual translator to retail clerk, had two kids and a varying and scary number of cats and read far more than is good for any human being.

So, now I live in Colorado with my husband, two teen sons who are both taller and stronger -- and far more handsome -- than I and four indoor cats, plus a variety of Not-Our-Cats(tm) who beg food at the kitchen door and for whom we provide facilities summer and winter. But who are not... cough... our cats. Ever.

I've been telling lies for fun and profit since 1994 (I did it for free long before that.)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting speculation about Shakespeare, July 23, 2010

By 

Paul Lappen (Manchester, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All Night Awake (Hardcover)

Part two of a trilogy, this novel looks at the life of a struggling young poet in Elizabethan England by the name of William Shakespeare.

Will is having a very hard time making it as a poet in London. He is not just a "struggling" poet, he is, literally, a starving poet. Will makes the acquaintance of Christopher Marlowe, the current favorite poet of Elizabeth I. Christopher has attracted the attention of the authorities, a sure route to a short life span. Back in his university days, evidently he was not diligent enough in reporting a classmate who made an unpleasant remark about the monarchy. Therefore, he has to be a sympathizer. Facing lots of torture on the rack, Christopher spins a tale about this huge conspiracy he has uncovered. He has to give the authorities somebody, so he plans on implicating Shakespeare. There is no conspiracy, and even if there was, Shakespeare is the last person who would be involved in it.

Both men received their poetry gifts through exposure to the world of faerie. An elf named Sylvanus has "gone bad" and is heading to London to create havoc. The King of faerie, Quicksilver, has no choice but to go after him. He changes into his alter ego, a beautiful woman named Silver, with whom Shakespeare has already cheated on his wife (she is back home in Stratford). Meantime, back in faerie, it is as if all of the magical energy is disappearing; elves and fairies are dying by the hundreds. Ariel, the Queen of Faerie, has no choice but to go to London and look for her husband. Also, Sylvanus takes over Marlowe's body; at night, he becomes a sort of humanoid beast who likes to disembowel people. Does Shakespeare stay out of the hands of the authorities? Does faerie get all of its magical energy removed?

This is an interesting speculation about the life of William Shakespeare before he became a Famous Person. Of course, Shakespeare fans will love it, and so will fantasy fans. It's worth reading.

2.0 out of 5 stars not as good..., February 16, 2006

By 

Luna (New Hampshire, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All Night Awake (Hardcover)

After reading "Ill Met by Moonlight" and being amused by it's interesting intermingling of the fairy world and the world of William Shakespeare, I looked forward to the next installment. Although as well written, the story was much darker. The main character is evil itself and the notion of evil. I would rather read something a little more light-hearted. All of the characters seem to lose whatever goodness they posessed in the first book and give in to the 'chaos' taking hold of their world. Ms. Hoyt could have taken a totally different direction with the fantasy and explored the more positive aspects of the fairy realm.

4.0 out of 5 stars All's Well That ..., August 30, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: All Night Awake (Hardcover)

I looked forward to reading this after being pleasantly surprised at 'Ill Met By Moonlight.' This book proved as entertaining, and maybe even a little more action packed than the first in what looks like is heading into a series.
Here, Faerie King Quicksilver accidently frees his evil brother, Sylvanus, who was banned from the fairy kingdom for having King Oberon and Queen Titania (Sylvanus and Quicksilver's parents) knocked off so he could assume the throne. He used the help of the Hunter, an ancient and mysterious power, to help him kill the king and queen, and now Sylvanus, having been captured, is forced to serve as one of the Hunter's hounds as his punishment. As 'Awake' gets under way, it's 10 years after 'Ill Met,' and now that Quicksilver has unwittingly set his evil brother free, now the Hunter is injured and a breach in fairy land has occurred. Now, plague is rampant, beginning at Stratford and spreading to London, where Sylvanus seeks death and destruction. Quicksilver doesn't want anyone to know, especially his wife, Queen Ariel, and he takes off to London to try to right his wrongs.
In the meantime, Shakespeare is in London trying to make it as a writer, but he's not doing too well. He's in debt, starving and basically ready to foot it back home in the country if he doesn't starve to death along the road back home. However, in steps Christopher Marlowe, who's enjoying patronship and success. Problem is, he's in hot water with the secret service, and they're badgering him more and more ruthlessly to name names in any conspiracy to off Queen Elizabeth. Marlowe sees a chance to implicate Shakespeare (the queen's men are always hungry for more), before Marlowe can make what he hopes will be a clean break from the intrigue and maybe take his illegitimate son, Imp, along with him, since Imp is the only thing Marlowe really cares about. If you're wondering, 'Hey, wasn't Marlowe gay?', well, Hoyt offers her own explanation, mainly that Marlowe had a fling with Quicksilver some years back. Quicksilver, incidentally, is a sort of gender shapeshifter, so Marlowe basically was enjoying the best of both worlds, so to speak.
Now Quicksilver arrives in London and is trying to set things straight with the help of Shakespeare. Will doesn't want any more connections with faerykind, though, as he's not happy he cheated on his wife in the first place with Quicksilver's feminine side, Silver. For a while the plot bumps back and forth between Shakespeare and Silver, Silver/Quicksilver and Marlowe, and Marlowe and Shakespeare, all of whom are trying to accomplish their own agendas, with the exception of Will, who basically wants to be a poet, earn an income and help his family out back in Stratford.
In the middle of this, Queen Ariel is basically pouting at home in faeryland, because she thinks Quicksilver has left her to find Shakespeare and resume the affair as Silver, two things he'd promised her he'd never do again. Every few chapters we see her miserable over her marriage and absent husband as faeryland unravels. She remains a passive character, no real development, and drags the story along. I read it and kept thinking, 'Stop whining!'
Eventually things tighten up storywise and the last 100 pages are the best in the book. Many can imagine roughly what happens, maybe just not exactly how, as they read this. It's fun and entertaining, but I had three other problems: One, Hoyt's not exactly clear enough for me on some of the magic principles of faeryland; two, the plot moved a bit too slowly the first two-thirds of the book; and three, her explanation for Shakespeare's gift kind of bothered me on some levels. Not necessarily a bad explanation, and it's sort of brave of her, but personally it rankled me a bit.
Don't get me wrong. I really enjoyed the book, and I'll probably read the third one (it seems more than likely to be forthcoming), but hopefully Ariel gets a spine and things speed up a bit.

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