Overview

Young, rich, and beautiful, Contessa Olivia di Castellamare has just announced that she will not marry for the next seven years. Why then, does she fall in love with the first boy she meets? Does she know that the boy she loves is really a girl? “The L Word meets Shakespeare” Twelve Nights with Viola & Olivia and More tells the story of a lesbian countess in 16th century Italy based on Countess Olivia is Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night. Now from the recently-discovered manuscripts of an English aristocrat comes this story of Sapphic love and feminine courage too graphic to publish until today. Twelve Nights with Viola & Olivia and More collects the first three books of The New Countess series by Lady Vanessa into one compact volume. Book 1, Twelve Nights with Viola & Olivia, retells Shakespeare's Twelfth Night from the perspective of Olivia, a young woman in an intense lesbian relationship with her trusted servant Maria, when she falls in love with Viola--disguised as a young man--before confusing her twin brother Sebastiano for the "man" she really loves. In Book 2, If I Should Tell My History, Olivia realizes that, having married Sebastiano through mistaken identity, the Church will annul her marriage as long as she does not have sex with him. In Book 3, Where Pleasant Fountains Lie, Olivia finally decides whether she will annul her marriage to Sebastiano, days after marrying him by accident. Lovingly compiled and restored by feminist scholar Dr. Hannah Miyamoto from the recently-discovered manuscripts of an English aristocrat, Twelve Nights with Viola & Olivia is the first in a remarkable story by Lady Vanessa--a contemporary of Virginia Woolf, Radclyffe Hall, and Vita Sackville-West--about women that love women, men that love men, and even an intersexed man that looks like a woman, living together 500 years ago in an Italy wracked by treachery, murder, and war. Transferring Shakespeare’s mythical Illyria to a real kingdom during the Italian Wars (1494-1559), Lady Vanessa conveys the fears, anger, lusts and loves of Countess Olivia, as she wields her kiss and her sword with equal ability. Reading Vanessa’s brisk narrative, "Twelve Nights with Viola & Olivia and More" will leave you too asking: “What would You do for Love?” CONTENT GUIDANCE: Brief Sexually Explicit Descriptions, and Brief Descriptions of Bullying and the Aftermath of Sexual Violence. For readers over 15 years old.