Love's Alchemy

"This well-wrought historical mystery pits the brilliant wordsmith John Donne against the Machiavellian politician Robert Cecil. The match is uneven; Cecil runs James I's kingdom while Donne struggles to make ends meet through the patronage of the alluring Countess of Bedford‚ who sets herself up as a rival to his resourceful wife‚ Anne.

Donne is summoned to meet with Cecil‚ who suborns the struggling poet as a spy to infiltrate the underground network of English Catholics‚ seeking Jesuit pr...