In the turbulent years of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, three poets--Byron, Shelley, and Keats--come to prominence, famous and infamous, for their vivid personalities, and their glamorous, shocking, and sometimes tragic lives. In this electrifying novel, those lives are explored through the eyes of the women who knew and loved them--intensely, scandalously. Four women from widely different backgrounds are linked by a sensational fate. Mary Shelley: the gifted daughter of gifted parents, for whom passion leads to exile, loss, and a unique fame. Lady Caroline Lamb: born to fabulous wealth and aristocratic position, who risks everything for the ultimate love affair. Fanny Brawne: her quiet, middle-class girlhood is transformed--and immortalized--by a disturbing encounter with genius. Augusta Leigh: the unassuming poor relation who finds herself flouting the greatest of all taboos. With the originality, richness, and daring of the poets themselves, Passion presents the Romantic generation in a new and unforgettable light. Adult/High School This fictionalized biography begins with the suicide attempt of Mary Wollstonecraft, early feminist and mother of the famed author of Frankenstein. The other women who are the center of the work include Mary Shelley née Godwin (Percy Shelley's lover, then wife), Lady Caroline Lamb (Lord Byron's lover), Fanny Brawne (John Keats's lover), Claire Clairemont (Mary Shelley's half-sister and Byron's lover), and Augusta Leigh (Byron's half-sister and lover). The poets are accompanied by many assorted celebrities and famous hangers-on. The interactions include incest, infidelity, children born out of wedlock, and any and all kinds of tragedy and scandal. This may sound like a rather high-toned soap opera, but the language and the situations that Morgan imagines transform and transcend the characters' actions. The portrayals are vivid, fascinating, and utterly realistic. Events move seamlessly by way of tightly packed prose and insightful detail about these interwoven lives. Teens will be intrigued by what intelligent and strong women were doing in the early 19th century in fact, Passion may inspire a quest to learn more about the Romantic poets and the short but uniquely creative span of English literature in which they lived. Jane Halsall, McHenry Public Library District, IL Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Although subtitled A Novel of the Romantic Poets, Morgan's vivid re-creation of the extraordinary lives of Byron, Shelley, and Keats has as much to do with the women who loved them as with the experiences of these literary and political revolutionaries. Unfolding through a prism of ardent emotions, the individual and collective stories of this infamous triumvirate are told through the eyes of the notorious Lady Caroline Lamb, Lord Byron's besotted lover; the intelligent and talented Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley's bluestocking wife and the author of Frankenstein ; the virtually anonymous Fanny Brawne, the inspiration for many of Keats' poems and the subject of his famous letters; and the scandalous Augusta Leigh, Byron' s half sister and forbidden love interest. By interweaving these fictional biographies, the author opens an intimate window to the heady world of the Romantic poets and the often-circumscribed position of women in early-nineteenth-century society. Astonishing historical fiction that vividly reflects the passions associated with an exhilarating new era in literature. Margaret Flanagan Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "A wonderful book--rich, authentic, beautifully written and, yes, passionate."--Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a Pearl Earring "I loved Jude Morgan's Passion , which seems to me to achieve exactly what historical fiction is for, namely to illuminate the past to the present... Compellingly written, and stylish with it"--Joanna Trollope, author of Brother and Sister "I can't remember when I last read a book that was so elegantly and stylishly written and yet at the same time so absolutely engrossing and compelling."--Diane Pearson, author of The Summer of the Barshinskeys