Literary agent and YA novel author, Miranda Barnes, heads home to Bard’s Rest for a much needed break and hopefully find some inspiration to finish her third book against an upcoming deadline. When she arrives home she finds the town bustling for the upcoming Shakespeare-themed festival spearheaded by her own mother. Where she hopes to be a spectator, she suddenly finds herself directing one of the plays alongside her childhood heartbreak Adam. Facing the hurt from long-ago and partaking in a festival she loves creates plenty of drama and inspiration, her days filled with Shakespeare and her nights with writing that long elusive story. This romantic rom-com has all you want from a Shakespearean farce, and more!

I love themed rom-com’s and Bard’s Rest was a great set-up for the drama of past love reunited, but the town was also filled with some great characters who added a bit of fun to some tense situations. Miranda was very easy to like and I relished hearing how and why Adam chose to do what he did back when they were in high school. There was a lot of lead-up to the grand reveal, which was a little tiring, but you could feel their connection many years later. It was hard not to like Adam, he was so easy going and sweet.

As with many stories that take place in a small town, there was a lot of family filled moments as well as back stories for many characters. Sometimes these seques to other stories bother me, but For the Love of the Bard was very cohesive and smooth, these small stories adding to Mirandas story rather than taking away from it. I was really happy with the transitions and interested in every character.

You don’t have to have a love of Shakespeare to appreciate the characters and stories in this novel, but I’ll admit it would certainly help! The author very cheekily casts some of the townspeople in roles that were familiar to me and some of them paralleled real life, which was clever and fun to read. However if you aren’t familiar with the plays you will not miss out on the fun and cheekiness despite that lack of knowledge, and the love story is very satisfying too!

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I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for my honest review and it was honest!

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