Re: WHAT ARE YOU READING RIGHT NOW?
I knew that you'd love it the moment I started to read it. The cleverness of a true storyteller, the very opposite of the straight reportage of the unambiguous journalistic trend. We are allowed to learn the story, discover or uncover it for ourselves without it being spoon-fed. It reminds me very much of some of your work.
Cornwell writes a lot of historical stuff but I always think that he gets the voice right. It strikes the reader as of the era, and you are right, not over-egged so as that it sounds corny.
We are slow to understand the scene is a replayed play. 'Piss on your bollocks' ... that was the line that got me; alerted me to the fact the actor is male. 'She is tall, and, I am constantly told, strikingly handsome.' was the first foreshadow, but I missed it. The naming... 'Richard' finally nails it, and as a reader I smirk in admiration at how the author had the actor put the play on us.
I just love clever writing.
