In this “amazing tour de force,” an actress travels back in time and has an affair with William Shakespeare, from a #1 New York Times bestseller (Cosmopolitan). An aging Hollywood film star, Jessica Pruitt fears the best days of her career are behind her. Arriving in Italy, she hopes to escape her worries by serving as a judge at the Venice Film Festival and immersing herself in preparations for her starring role in a new cinematic take on The Merchant of Venice. The ancient, crumbling city of canals is the perfect escape, enchanting Jessica with its history, its magic, and its mystery. Then one day she finds herself in a very different Venice—one that hasn’t existed for five hundred years—as the heroine of a new theatrical endeavor by an enigmatic young playwright named Will Shakespeare. Suddenly, impossibly, Jessica has found a new beginning, a new audience—and, in the arms of a genius fledgling bard, a love affair more stimulating, satisfying, and liberating than any she will ever know, even five centuries on. Originally published as Serenissima, this “hypnotic” novel by the bestselling author of Fear of Flying is delightfully uninhibited love story that transcends time (The Washington Post Book World). “Erica Jong can write a historical novel that both honors its tradition with affectionate parody and creates its own full fictional reality.” —The New York Times Book Review “A sexy adventure story which is a real page turner.” —Ken Follett, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Pillars of the Earth This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erica Jong including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.