For nearly 400 years, scholars have puzzled over the question of who really wrote the 154 love sonnets commonly attributed to William Shakespeare.

In December the first, limited edition, of The Darling Buds of Maie, was published. This book sets out the truth of the Sonnets and reveals the identity of the characters - an identity that the authors hoped to obscure forever.

It is a tale of power, scandal, lust, madness, and perhaps even murder, which takes place in the last years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, against the background of Shakespearean theatre. It involves some of the greatest people at Court; the Queen herself, her advisors, earls, ladies, admirals, playwrights and poets.

The detailed research explodes the myths around the writings assumed to have been the penmanship of William Shakespeare. The love story contained in the Darling Buds of Maie echoes the plays As You Like It, Twelfth Night and Hamlet.

The book explains how Shake-Speare's sonnets were really the work of lovers Mary Fitton, the Queen's favourite Maid of Honour, and the twenty year old William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, a courtier of massive wealth and influence.

You can buy a first edition copy of The Darling Buds of Maie, signed by Ben Alexander, (the author who spent many months trying to prove himself wrong, but could not), and discover for yourself the truly sensational truth about Shake-Speare.