This romantic novel is the work of Scottish author William Black, on the life of Judith Shakepeare. Judith Quiney, née Shakespeare, was the younger daughter of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway and the fraternal twin of their only son Hamnet Shakespeare. She married Thomas Quiney, a wine merchant of Stratford-upon-Avon. The circumstances of the marriage, including Quiney's misconduct is thought to have prompted the rewriting of Shakespeare's will. Thomas was blocked from the prospect of receiving anything from the estate, while Judith's inheritance was attached with stringent provisions to safeguard it from her husband.