The story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates.

Isobel is an engaging character, surrounded by unforgettable relations and friends from acerbic Aunt Vinny to her short brother Charles to her missing mother and vague father. The book moves in and out of fantasy and time warps, but because the author is so skilled at creating worlds within worlds, I was happy to follow wherever she led. I also loved LIFE AFTER LIFE and will now look for another Atkinson novel to read...and soon.