Preview

Seventeen-year-old Esti Legard spent her childhood in the Shakespearean world of her famous father, and when he died, she promised she would never give up acting. After she and her stepmother fulfill a lifelong dream by moving to a Caribbean island for her senior year, she realizes that nothing at her new school's theater department is quite as it seems. Stunned by the death of a fellow student on her first day of class, Esti is soon surrounded by legends of the wicked jumbees that haunt the West Indies. She finds herself snubbed by the school’s star actress and relegated to a minor part in Romeo and Juliet.

Only her intriguing new mentor, the elusive Alan, shares her passion for Shakespeare. Hiding in the dark recesses of the theater, he leads Esti deep into her own soul to explore the limits of her talent. When Esti's childhood best friend moves to the island and back into her life, however, Alan disappears. Rocked by growing accusations of befriending a jumbee, Esti realizes she must find out who – or what – Alan really is. She is soon forced to defy everyone and everything she’s ever believed in, as she plunges into the mysteries of Shakespeare and the legends of the West Indians, discovering shocking truths about her own past that will forever shape her future.

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“I take thee at thy word.” Esti heard the deep voice again, the voice that had spoken during her tryout for Juliet.

She lurched to her feet. “Who’s there?”

“Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized; Henceforth I never will be Romeo.”

Esti paused, her heart still thudding. An uncertain smile played on her lips. “What man art thou,” she finally said, “that thus bescreen’d in night so stumblest on my counsel?”

“By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am. But I want to know where you learned Shakespeare, and why the hell is Danielle playing Juliet, now that you’re here?”

Biting back a laugh, she peered into the dark room. “Where are you? How did you get in?”

“With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls, and I’m on the stage, of course.”

She twisted around to study the stage, surprised at her difficulty in locating his voice. She thought she saw movement on the far end, but in the darkness she wasn’t sure. “Are you a jumbee?”

The voice chuckled. “Do you think I'm a jumbee?”

“Everyone's afraid of jumbees. But you don't seem scary.”

“There’s no reason for you to be afraid of me,” he assured her. “My name is Alan.”

Esti grew rigid. “That was my dad’s name.”

“I guess Alan Legard would have taught flawless Shakespeare to his daughter, now wouldn’t he?”

She studied the far end of the stage more intently now. “How do I turn on the lights?”

Before Alan could tell her where the lights were, she suddenly shook her head. “No, never mind.” She felt no danger from him, and she rather liked the dark. For some reason, she didn’t feel as shy as usual. “Did you know my father?”

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