Mercutio has never been in love. Not unless you count a boy whose face he can barely remember. Not unless you count the world. [loc. 2328]
Mercutio Guertio (yes, that Mercutio) meets Dante Alighieri at the Battle of Campaldino in 1289: they are caught in a freak storm -- where they glimpse spectral armies, and becomes certain that there is a third man with them -- but stumble back to the carnage of the battlefield, and subsequently become friends. Mercurio, though, has been changed: he sees people who are not there, and does not recognise the stars in the night sky. Then Dante, grieving the death of 'his' Beatrice, is pulled into Faerie, where he wanders in a dark wood...

Mercutio does not know the way to Faerie, but he's encountered their Queen, and she tells him that he can rescue Dante if he can find a doorway. Brunetto Latini, Dante's friend and teacher, suggests that Mercutio joins the expedition of the Vivaldi brothers, who want to find a route to Asia by sailing west from Spain. Surely Faerie is on the other side of the world, and thus can be found on the way to Asia?

En route, Mercutio encounters a female pope, sailors from China and Africa, a helpful friar who supplies a medicine made of henbane, and a hermit who claims to be the son of Abelard and Heloise. He's haunted by a silent, mysterious man who people seem to think is his brother: and he's differently haunted by memories of his lost love, a boy who he called Blackbird after mishearing the other's name as 'I fly'.

This is a splendid novel, packed with cosmology, Italian history (Guelphs and Ghibellines), Tarot imagery, and perfidious fae. The fantastical elements blend folk tales, ballads and mythology: to me, Heartfield's Faerie had a distinctly medieval feel, reminiscent of Chaucer and Boccaccio. The novel also provides an origin story for Dante's Divine Comedy: and, of course, Mercutio has to get to Verona and encounter the warring Montecchi and Cappalletti factions...

But at its heart, Mercutio is the story of the friendship between Mercutio and Dante, and the implacable vengeance of the Faerie Queen. Mercutio is vividly rendered, with a blend of self-doubt, cynicism and joie de vivre that seems fitting for the changes he witnesses in the world around him. I liked him a great deal: and I'll look out for Heartfield's other novels, because her prose is readable and this story full of surprises.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 7th May 2026.

I was asked by NetGalley to review this beautifully written book.

Mercutio - 13th century epic retelling of the life of Mercutio before he ever encountered Romeo and Juliet.

This is history meets fantasy. Mercutio and Dante are both outcasts and exiles, Mercutio and Dante join with a band of fighters called the Montecchi, near Verona. In joining these fighters they open a crack between our world and Faerie by accident- this will follow Mercuito for the rest of his days. There will be new destinies for those who will travel to the ends of the earth for love and friendship.

Beautifully written story with surprises and a really interesting story - I will be seaking this authors other work now

Due for publication May 7 2026.

Mercutio is a brilliant and intriguing adult fantasy that takes a fresh spin on the classic Romeo and Juliet tale. The world-building is rich and immersive, and the characters are well-developed, especially Mercutio, who gets a whole new depth here.

This is the backstory of Mercutio ,before he went to Verona and met Romeo. His parents were exiled to Venice because they were from each of the two families fighting for control of Florence. Mercutio goes to Florence to try to gain his uncle's esteem,and a position which will enable him to bring his parents back too. He fights, in a battle between the two families, alongside the poet Dante. As horsemen hurtle towards them and they are faced with certain death, Dante shouts some lines of verse and they slip aside into another world -the Faerie. After that they are to some degree able to come and go until Dante goes to Faerie to find the woman he loves and does not return. Mercutio embarks on an epic journey to get him back and will have to outwit Mab, the Faerie queen. It's a compelling story, well written, with echoes of Philip Pullmans flitting between worlds Absolutely terrific.

A clever and imaginative retelling that gives new life to a familiar Shakespearean world. The character of Mercutio is explored with depth and wit, making the story feel both fresh and intriguing. Fans of literary retellings will appreciate the creativity and sharp storytelling.

Thank you to the writer, publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book.

As much as enjoy Shakespeare, I do not like Romeo and Juliet.

I know, I know. But it has never read to me as a tale of romance and star crossed lovers. Even in high school, it read more as a tale of idiots allowing their selfishness and pettiness and lust do harm to the people they loved. They broke the world for a moment’s infatuation and it annoyed me then that the world could be bent to the will of such careless, self-absorbed creatures. It annoys me even more now that we seem to ruled by such creatures. I may, however, have to read the play again now that I have read Mercutio by Kate Heartfield.

Mercutio is a prologue of sorts to Romeo and Juliet, tracing the life of Mercutio before he meets the two ill-fated stars. In this telling, Mercutio, actually born under a cursed star and with a prophecy that his desperate and disgraced parents cling to like drowning men cling to floating wood, lives through both the history of northern Italy and haunting and destructive encounters with the faerie. The book follows him from battlefields, to the politics of Florence, to the Atlantic ocean to the realm of the faerie. Mercutio befriends Dante of the The Divine Comedy and his life is forever altered, setting him on a collision course with Shakespeare’s play.

The book is a discussion of who we love, how our situations determine who we can love and how, and how love can be applied to friends, to family, and to the family we build around ourselves as we make our way, successfully or not, through the world. As he grows from the scorned youth of a forbidden marriage to a central player in the politics of Verona, Mercutio transforms from someone focused only on his family to building, or attempting to build, loving relationships with many different kinds of people. Whether it is his deep friendship with Dante, or his comradeship with his adventuring partners, or the family he is welcomed into in Florence, or the self-sacrificing love he finds for his parents, Mercutio’s story is one about how the right kinds of love and transform us, and the wrong kinds, or the kinds expressed in compulsion rather than mutual respect, can warp us. His story is as much an adventure of romance as it is an adventure across the world.

And it is an adventure. The themes of the book are wrapped in a series of exciting and moving adventures. We see many kinds of battlefields, spend time with the learned of the day, and try to survive the attention of various faeries and their enemies. Murder, mayhem, and destruction lie around every corner. It is a lovely, thoughtful book, taking plenty of time to explore the Italy of Mercutio’s day. We see both how much its inhabitants were like us, and how far apart from them we could be.

It is also a lovely, hauntingly written book. The prose is beautiful, both considered and sharp, languid when it needs to be, cutting when the time calls for us to be cut. Several times the book slipped into what I assumed were tributes to the poetry of Dante and Shakespeare. I am not expert, but Heartfield is a scholar of both writers, and I am confident that her scholarship is reflected in her prose, to great effect.

The fact that Mercutio is a prologue to Romeo and Juliet is not a mere gimmick, either. Deepening the character of Mercutio, better explaining the world the play lives in, and contrasting his deep and sincere love with the shallow counterpart in the play sharpens the impression of the play, give it more weight and thoughtfulness. This book is in deep conversation with Shakespeare’s play, and I think both are the better for the dialogue. I suspect much is true of Dante’s works as well, though I am not nearly well read enough in that area to be certain.

Mercutio is lovely written adventure that will change how you see one of the canonical texts of the English language. I heartily recommend pre-ordering it now.