This book is a 2006 Cybil Award Nominee for YA Fiction.
Poor Anne Hathaway. It’s high time a girl her age were married, but her first suitor is a nasty, forward boy she wants nothing to do with, her next was caught and imprisoned for poaching, and has had to flee, her next suitor has died, and the latest one her awful stepmother sets her up 
with to get her out of the house is worse than having no husband at all. And really, it’s not that Anne’s not comely or pretty like all of the other girls in Stratford-Upon-Avon. It’s just that she’s really not sure she wants the kind of life that so many others of her friends have. She wants a marriage with all the trimmings. Anne doesn’t just want to marry for duty. She wants to marry for love.
Anne and her family have been friends with Mary and John Shakespeare since Anne’s mother was alive, and her father was ever a true and steadfast friend of the family, despite his new wife, Joan’s constant carping on their circumstances and pride. Though she grew up thinking of the boy Will as her brother, despite the fact that he is seven years her junior, he has always been a close, bright, sprightly friend, and before she knows how to chase away the thought, Will has lodged himself securely in Anne’s heart. But what if Loving Will Shakespeare means that Anne will be forever left on her own? Is it still worth it to marry for love?
A thoughtful piece of historical fiction from a veteran in the field.
