★ Emily Brontë and her siblings stalk the wild English moors again in Powell’s (The River Within) spirited yet melancholic ode. Seen through the eyes of introverted Emily, the narrative begins in 1824 when she joins her older sisters at a dreary boarding school, where the two eldest—Maria and Elizabeth—contract typhoid and die. Death and its various devastations haunt Emily, Charlotte, and Anne as they navigate the tragedies that befall the family. The literary development of Emily, from writing childhood stories of an imaginary world called Gondal into profound verse and fiction, is fascinating to watch. Within the steady hum of domestic life at the family home in Haworth, they find the courage to submit their writings under men pen names. The quiet rhythms are continually disrupted by their feckless brother Branwell, whose impending doom is projected early on. Powell evokes the windswept, fog-draped world of the Brontë sisters in gloomy hues that pay tribute to the trio’s gothic provenance.
VERDICT Studded with poetic flashes and sympathetic characterizations that put flesh on the bones of the Brontë universe, this is a poignant, bittersweet novel that Brontë fans should relish.
