BOOK REVIEW - THE SECRET DIARIES OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE

I don't usually read this much.  But taking a book to bed on these cold winter nights has been very enjoyable.  Thanks to Mary Silver for recommending this book.

In 1986 I visited Howarth parsonage in Yorkshire England with my husband. I will never forget the moors covered with heather so parallel to the moors I conjured up when I read Wuthering Heights. I have always loved the “Jane Eyre” story. I own the Masterpiece version with Timothy Dalton as Rochester. He is too handsome to be the real character but is so wonderful in the part I forgive his good looks. I never tire of  the four hours it takes to watch "Jane Eyre". After reading Syrie James’s lovely book I will enjoy this movie even more.


If James made a mistake in her writing of this book it was using the diary format. The story moves along with crisp first person story telling from Charlotte Bronte's point of view.  It feels more like a memoir, but every now and then Charlotte talks to the confound diary and I found it very irritating and distracting.


With that said I loved the book. I enjoyed getting to know the Bronte family; where they lived; about their writing process; their personal struggles; the life experiences that played out in their novels; the aspects of their successes and disappointments that I did not know—so well captured in believable language that Charlotte Bronte would approve, I believe.


Some parts of the ending veered off into the direction of a mass-market romance but not so far that it ruined it for me. The book had so much class I didn’t understand why James found this necessary. The afterward in the book is filled with actual letters and poetry written by the Brontes. I liked reading them as they gave some credibility to the authors research.  If you love Bronte literature you will enjoy this book.