The Swans Nest, Laura McNeal
The Swans Nest, Laura McNeal
List: $31.99 | Sale: $22.40
Club: $15.99

The Swan's Nest
A Novel

Author: Laura McNeal

Narrator: Nicola F. Delgado

Unabridged: 12 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/12/2024


Synopsis

A tender and engrossing historical novel about the unlikely love affair between two great 19th-century poets, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett.

On a bleak January day in 1845, a poet who had been confined to her room for four years by recurrent illness received a letter from a writer she secretly idolized but had never seen. “I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,” Robert Browning wrote, “and I love you too.”
 
Elizabeth Barrett was ecstatic. She was famous for her poetry but completely cut off from the kind of international travel that Browning used to fuel his obscure, unsuccessful, innovative poems, one of which was written from a murderer’s point of view. They began an affectionate correspondence, but Elizabeth kept delaying a visit. What would happen when he saw her in person? What was Robert really like? Could she persuade her father and brothers that he was honorable, even though she had never met his family? And what would happen if she gave in to Robert’s wild proposal that they go to Italy and see if the sun could cure her?
 
McNeal brilliantly tells the story of how Robert and Elizabeth fell in love with each other’s words and shocked her conservative, close-knit family and the literary world. Sensitively and lyrically written, as rich as the lovers' own poetry, The Swan's Nest will sweep up readers in the triumphant story of two people forced to choose between a safe, stable life and the love they felt for each other.

About Laura McNeal

Laura Rhoton McNeal holds an MA in fiction writing from Syracuse University and is the author, with her husband, Tom, of four critically acclaimed young adult novels, including Crooked (winner of the California Book Award in Juvenile Literature) and Zipped (winner of the Pen Center USA Literary Award in Children’s and Young Adult Literature). Laura’s solo debut novel, Dark Water, was a finalist for the National Book Award. She lives with her family in Coronado, California.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Annette on March 04, 2024

The Swan’s Nest brings a fascinating story of two 19th century poets, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. In January 1845, Elizabeth has been confined to her room for the past four years by recurrent illness when she receives a letter from another poet she has secretly admired. Robert not only lov......more

Goodreads review by Tom on February 26, 2024

Full disclosure: the reason I have read this book 6 or 7 times is because I'm married to the author. Still, I can honestly say that only a book as beautiful as this one could sweep me away again and again, and that's what this book did, each and every time through. The story itself is compelling--a......more

Goodreads review by Moonkiszt on June 21, 2024

Although I've heard about these two love birds my whole life, I really never read their story. Two famous poets, writers, a man, a woman in a time those didn't mix professionally, and here they are. Delighted by the surprise of their interest in each other's work, in each other's passions, and in ea......more

Goodreads review by Sue on March 16, 2025

One of my favorite reading genres is historical fiction and Laura McNeal has certainly added a new personal favorite to my list with The Swan’s Nest. This story of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, their families, the society in which they lived, and their budding then growing relationship is p......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer on March 20, 2024

What a beautiful book! This is not my typical type of read but something about it called to me and I am very happy to have picked it up. This story is about Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, two poets from very different families and circumstances who fall in love despite it being forbidden by......more


Quotes

“Let me count the ways I love The Swan’s Nest: as a transporting romance, as a meticulous recreation of history, as a compelling examination of social hierarchies, and as an expose of the evil that can lurk behind fortunes. It’s a bold feat to enter the minds of geniuses, but Barrett and Browning, as well as the wonderful cast of supporting characters, are as believable as they are beautifully written. Laura McNeal has constructed a gorgeous, faithful, and gripping rendering of poetry’s most enduring love story.Nina de Gramont, author of international bestseller The Christie Affair

“What a lovely, lyrical novel this is!  Tender in its sympathies, meticulous in its research, and mercifully attentive to the fraught conditions of love, loneliness, and loss, it seems like an antidote to so much contemporary fiction.  The restorative romance and marriage of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning is familiar to many readers of British poetry, but Laura McNeal has made it feel so new and fresh and nourishing, like a sea breeze from the West Indies cleansing away the soot and smoke of 19th century London.”
 

 —Ron Hansen, author of The Kid

“Laura McNeal is one of my favorite writers and The Swan’s Nest is a stunning accomplishment. Assiduously researched, gorgeously brought to life, this literary love story will keep you up all night.”
 —Lily King, author of Five Tuesdays in Winter

“Compelling, convincing and richly woven, The Swan’s Nest conjures the lives of two legendary poets with true drama and nuance. In McNeal’s talented hands, we are intimately drawn into the age the Barrett-Browning’s lived and loved in, with all of its cultural complexity; into the thorniness of well-meaning but destructive families, and into the fascinating and evocative entanglement of two peerless minds. Gorgeous and provocative storytelling. “
 —Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife and Circling the Sun