I was amazed at how much I enjoyed this book -- I approached it warily since I have recently read several novelizations of the Brontes' lives which were unremarkable, basically just reworkings of the established biographical facts. What makes this book different is the author's research and refusal to accept the accepted biographies of the Brontes (which, truth be told, was Charlotte Bronte's version, via her friend Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of her) as the only truth. I have always had trouble aligning the standard knowledge of Emily Bronte with the novelist who produced "Wuthering Heights". The character of Emily Bronte in this book is so much more like who I always imagined her to be...a woman of deep convictions, shy in social situations, but a strong woman with a vivid emotional life. Emily is not the only one of the Brontes that the author treats kindly; Bramwell and Patrick Bronte are also more complex and understandable. "Booklist" describes this book as "A convincing imagining of the Bronte story..." and I agree!

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