Lightborne - Hardcover

by Hesse Phillips (Author)

A thrilling reimagining of the last days of one of the most famed Elizabethan playwrights--Christopher Marlowe--and of a love that flourishes within the margins.

Christopher Marlowe: playwright, poet, lover. In the plague-stricken streets of Elizabethan England, Kit flirts with danger, leaving a trail of enemies and old flames in his wake. His plays are a roaring success; he seems destined for greatness.

But in the spring of 1593, the queen's eyes are everywhere and the air is laced with paranoia. Marlowe receives an unwelcome visit from his one-time mentor, Richard Baines, a man who knows all of Marlowe's secrets and is hell-bent on his destruction.

When Marlowe is arrested on charges of treason, heresy, and sodomy--all of which are punishable by death--he is released on bail with the help of Sir Thomas Walsingham. Kit presumes Walsingham to be his friend; in fact, the spymaster has hired an assassin to take care of Kit, fearing that his own sins may come to light.

Now, with the queen's spies and the vengeful Baines closing in on the playwright, Marlowe's last friend in the world is Ingram Frizer, a total stranger who is obsessed with Kit's plays, and who will, within ten days' time, first become Marlowe's lover--and then his killer. Richly atmospheric, emotionally devastating, and heartrendingly imagined, Lightborne is a masterful reimagining of the last days of one of England's most famous literary figures.

Author Biography

Hesse Phillips (they) was raised in rural Pennsylvania but now lives in Spain. Much of their early life was spent in the theater, where they developed a love for Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan/Jacobean dramatists. They earned a BA in theater history at Marlboro College, Vermont, and later a PhD in drama from Tufts University in Boston. While writing their undergraduate thesis on Edward II, they also began working on a novel about Christopher Marlowe that would eventually become Lightborne. They are a proud graduate of Grub Street Boston's acclaimed Novel Incubator program.