Two extraordinary people. A love that draws them together. A loss that threatens to tear them apart.

On a summer’s day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever.

Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home? Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.

Neither parent knows that Hamnet will not survive the week. Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright: a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.