Review: Romancing Miss Brontë by Juliet Gael

There was an exquisite sensitivity at work in those intelligent eyes. Even when she was silent, those eyes were never passive; they watched carefully noticing everything. She seemed to be reading your feelings and attitudes, at times even your soul.
Romancing Miss Brontë – Juliet Gael

Romancing Miss Brontë will make you want to read anything and everything by the Brontë sisters. Following the life of Charlotte and her siblings from the times before they were published, through tragedy and heartbreak, to the last stages of Charlotte’s life, Juliet Gael’s debut novel is informative, alluring, romantic, and insightful. Crafted from fact, it is a visionary work, reminiscent of the Brontë’s writing itself. Pulling themes from the Brontë’s books, and molding them into realistic portraits of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, the reader can’t help but fall in love with these women, and feel sadness for all their tragedies.

Gael’s chosen to begin her story with Charlotte, Emily, and Anne in Haworth, England. Living with their aging father and broken brother, the women turn to writing to escape. First starting with poetry, they eventually succumb to the desires of publishing novels. Met at times with harsh criticism followed by raving success, the women handle their reviews, and their lives, in three very different ways. Emily, reclusive yet wildly abandoned; Anne, prim and proper; and Charlotte, heartbroken but determined.

We start out with the whole family, and close in on Charlotte when tragedy falls. We follow her to England and back, landing finally in Haworth where she must decide her fate, and her future, and where her desires and dreams should lie. Gael has written an artful imagination of the Brontë household. We feel for this family, and their circumstances. I was completely entranced by Gael’s narrative as the sisters worked on their individual novels. Having only read Jane Eyre, it made me desperately want to read everything else by the Brontës. Not one page of this book bored me, I was completely fascinated by the lives on the page in front of me.

The book’s description focuses on Charlotte’s love life and the man who falls for her, her father’s curate, Arthur. And Arthur and Charlotte’s story does play an integral part of the narrative, but it’s not until the last half of the book, and it’s not the whole story. Romancing Miss Brontë is about more than just Charlotte and Arthur, it’s about Emily and Anne as well, and even their brother Branwell and father Patrick. It’s a beautiful story, and a heartbreaking one. Well-written, well-executed, it is a splendid read, full of vigor and life and beautiful words.

4 stars

(I received this book from the publisher for review)