The North American rights to Laura's historical novel, The Swan's Nest, have been acquired by Algonquin and publication is scheduled for January of 2024
THE SWAN'S NEST
On January 10, 1845, a struggling, middle-class English poet named Robert Browning wrote a letter to a famous and wealthy invalid very few people had ever seen. “I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,” he wrote, “and I love you too.” For the next five months, they corresponded about each other’s poetry, she insisting that he could not possibly love her, dreading the moment when he would see her as she truly was, and secretly composing a series of sonnets about her love for him. On September 12, 1846, they married in secret and left, as her doctor had long recommended, for the unpolluted air of Italy, risking death, disinheritance, and near-certain poverty. In her bag, she carried drafts of the sonnets and all 286 of Robert’s letters.
On January 10, 1845, a struggling, middle-class English poet named Robert Browning wrote a letter to a famous and wealthy invalid very few people had ever seen. “I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,” he wrote, “and I love you too.” For the next five months, they corresponded about each other’s poetry, she insisting that he could not possibly love her, dreading the moment when he would see her as she truly was, and secretly composing a series of sonnets about her love for him. On September 12, 1846, they married in secret and left, as her doctor had long recommended, for the unpolluted air of Italy, risking death, disinheritance, and near-certain poverty. In her bag, she carried drafts of the sonnets and all 286 of Robert’s letters.