By Any Other Name

Struggling teen actor Will Hughes unintentionally becomes embroiled in a high-stakes murder mystery in Cotter’s careening adventure romance debut, set in 1593 Elizabethan England. Sixteen-year-old Will gets by playing female leads under the mentorship of playwright Christopher Marlowe at the infamous Rose Theater in London. But even offstage he must assume a role, having adopted his name as a pseudonym to hide the fact that he is the gay son of anti-monarchist parents, from whom he was kidnapped as a child. Determined to earn enough money to return to them, Will agrees to oversee an illegal playhouse for attractive Lord James Bloomsbury in exchange for gold. After witnessing Christopher’s murder, Will—enlisted as a spy for the queen he detests—finds himself masquerading as English nobility as he pursues an unknown assassin and tries to quell his undeniable attraction to James. Sharp-tongued Will is riveting as the earnestly melodramatic and ill-fated hero whose tumultuous and forbidden romance with James pulses beneath every scene. Cotter weaves deep research on historic events and figures such as William Shakespeare and Irish pirate queen Gráinne Ní Mháille into this leisurely and delightfully wrought tale of love and deceit. Main characters present as white. Ages 14–up. (Oct.)