NOTE: I won a free eBook copy of this book in PDF format from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers (March 2021).

I have a complicated relationship with Shakespeare: while I can't deny the contributions he made to the literary world, I struggle with parsing the language of his plays and I question whether he was even their true author. However, my relationship with Shakespeare is not nearly as nuanced as the relationship between Shakespeare and Jessica, this novel's protagonist (who is, possibly, the author's alter ego). Jessica is a professor of literature/Shakespeare fangirl who accidentally stumbles back in time to The Bard's world. Though a little low on action, this novel succeeds at world-building and exploring what Shakespeare, his family, his peers, and his loves might have been like in person. Barksdale Inclan dives into the thoughts and emotions of her female characters, especially Mary, allowing them to question their identities and shape their lives for themselves. The side comments about feminism and academia enhanced the narrative. The book's denouement and conclusion felt unconventional but posit some interesting possibilities for what might have happened had Shakespeare lived longer. ( )

I have loved Shakespeare's plays for years. His sonnets? Not so much. One of my all-time favorite plays is The Merchant of Venice. All of those things are in rhis book.

First some crticism. It seems like every great artist from hundreds of years ago is now portrayed as gay or at least gay-leaning- Michaelangeli, Da Vinci now Shakespeare. Were they? Who knows for sure.And does it really matter? Then there is the crticism of the morality and ethics from past centuries. Yes Jewish people were caricatured and badly treated. We know now how aweful that is, but 400 years ago it was normal and accepted. Learn from history stop trying to rewrite it. 400 years from now there will probably be things we do without thinking today that will be considered horrific.

In spite of those criticisms I truly enjoyed this book. What would daily life be like in Shakespeare's England? How would a 21st century woman react to it? Here you get a glimpse of that. The plot-twist at the end was....well this is fiction. In fiction warp drive is possible lol. The ending was good. It wasn't rushed or impossible.

If you like Shakespeare or the time-period you will enjoy this. If you enjoy romance you will enjoy this. If you enjoy time travel you will enjoy this. ( )

The Play's the Thing is a Time Travel fantasy with a LOT going for it.

Jessica is an English Professor trying to bring her love of Shakespeare to bored undergrads. One night after watching a rehearsal of "The Merchant of Venice" she walks through a door and finds herself not only in Shakespeare's time and city but also in Shakespeare's bedroom!

The author has done her homework and the details of life in Shakespeares time ring true. This is a "A Day in the Life of Shakespeare's England" with the sometimes unlovely details brought home very up close and very personal.The things that a modern woman takes for granted that are just not available in the 1500's would boggle the mind.

Lots of time travel stories gloss over the day to day minutia -- the stinks and the blood and the slops - but this one doesn't and that what i liked about it.

Sorry to have to report that there is a plot twist at the end that I was very unhappy with (SPOILER ALERT)

The author has it that because our Jessica spent a few weeks with Will Shakespeare back in the day that HUGE SIGNIFICATION MAJOR changes were made in the historical time line and even the body of work. Really? Even for a little fantasy book cum romance novel that was just too much for me to swallow - or enjoy . Took a lot of the fun out of it.

Five star book demoted to three - and should have been brought down to two ( )

The concept is interesting but I had a hard time staying with it and found myself skipping ahead. Jessica helps to stage a school production of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice and slips back to 1598 to meet the Bard himself, who is regularly visited by several Jessicas. Ultimately, she tries to adapt to Renaissance life and wonders if she can return to 2018 or is forever stuck in the past. Fans of sci-fi and/or Shakespeare may find the story a fun read, but if you're looking for something on the level of Dr. Who, this isn't it. ( )

Disclaimer: An electronic copy of this book was provided in exchange for review by publishers TouchPoint Press, via Library Thing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Reader response to this lightweight time travel fantasy may be predicated on how well they react to the somewhat clunky gimmick Inclán has used to set up the story: the author, the protagonist/narrator, and several other female characters all share the same first name.

It seems that, through some cosmic mechanism that is never closely examined, a series of Jessicas have taken to appearing in the London quarters of playwright William Shakespeare as he is preparing to premier ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in 1598 – a play for which he has (by most accepted accounts) invented the name Jessica whole cloth. The playwright is annoyed by this, as are most of his neighbors, since most of these unwilling transportees arrive in hysterics, bounce around the rooms screaming at the top of their lungs, and more-or-less quickly get sucked back into whatever post-16th-century world they had been inhabiting.

Not so narrator Jessica Randall, professor of Shakespearean studies at a small college in central California. After a brief period of understandable disorientation, she leaps eagerly on the opportunity for firsthand study of the writer around whom she has built her career and almost immediately begins to fantasize about the glory and accolades that will be showered on her when she returns to her own time with the absolute answers to so many of the questions that have surrounded the work of The Bard. Said Bard is thoroughly tired of uninvited visitors, but quickly realizes that this one appears not only to be settling in for a long stay, but that she has somehow plugged up the cosmic conduit and prevented any more Jessicas from popping in uninvited.

That’s essentially the set-up for a good-hearted journey through Shakespeare’s world, combining more or less equal parts of “21st-century woman attempts to deal with 16th-century hygiene” and “socially conscious scholar tries to steer a famous writer away from his more egregious anti-Semitic statements.” Slowly, Randall also becomes aware that she must tread an extremely thin line – does she share the “history” she knows about the writer and his work? And if so, is he more – or less – likely to produce them? Does she explain why it’s imperative for him to leave London and avoid an early death as Bubonic Plague sweeps London shortly after the turn of the century?

And what about her own life in the future? Can she find a way to return to it? Does she, ultimately, want to?

So, lots of questions, lots of conflict, but mostly quotidian tasks to simply get from one day to the next in an era where she could not use her training to survive, and where her attempts to do so might quickly bring charges of witchcraft. There’s also a burgeoning romance with predictable results before author Inclán tries to bring everything to a satisfying conclusion.

And here’s where the story reveals its greatest weakness. There’s a conclusion. And then there’s another conflict. It’s resolved. Happy Ever After? Well, no. There’s this one other thing. That authorial reluctance to wrap things up and truly close the book repeats several times before an epilogue of sorts finally rings down the curtain.

Overall, this is a pleasant enough tale with some interesting insights about the Shakespearean era and some nice what-if speculation about an alternative history for the playwright. It will engage the interest, but probably not the heart, of the average reader. ( )