UK Publication Date: 3rd Dec 2015. 336 pages.
The Bronte Plot is quite a difficult book to characterise. On one level it is a Romantic romp through the best of British Literature but more than that it is about coming to terms with your own flaws, seeking redemption and recognising the things in ourselves that make us weaker, that make us less.
Lucy works for Sid. He runs an antique shop and specialises in bespoke interior design solutions for some pretty high end clients. Lucy helps to run the shop and manages the rare and early edition books in his collection. Books are what make Lucy tick. She is never happier than when she is curled up with a good book and just touching the whispery pages of the antique books makes Lucy feel alive.
Her father disappeared from her life when she was eight and since then the only contact that she has had from him is a book every year on her birthday.
Lucy is quite a difficult character to like at times. She has this sweet bookish side tempered with the smooth talking tongue of a born grifter. At times she doesn’t seem to know herself where the line is between fact and fiction. James, her boyfriend, finds himself on the wrong side of one of these lines and it leads to the end of their relationship. The realisation of what has happened forces Lucy to think more about her actions and how the “stories” have affected other people.
James’s grandmother, Helen, employs Lucy to accompany her on an “antique buying” trip to England with a literary flavour and Lucy soon discovers why Helen had felt such a connection to her. It is this journey – both physically and emotionally – that forces Helen and Lucy to seek reconciliation and forgiveness and to settle the differences of their pasts.
I really engaged with this book because I have a long standing love of the English nineteenth century novel and those of the Bronte Sisters in particular. My visit to Haworth and the Bronte Parsonage evoked as strong an emotion in me as it did to Lucy. I felt a similar joy strolling through the same damp cobbled streets that Emily Bronte had walked and I wandered the path to the moors marvelling in the Wuthering Heights landscape all-around me.
This isn’t your average modern day romance but if you invest the time it can prove to be quite thought provoking.
Supplied by Net Galley and the Publisher in exchange for an honest review.
You can buy the book here: BRONTE PLOT
Categories: 4 Stars Book Review
angelnet69
Prolific reader, enthusiastic theatre and movie-goer and ex-Olivier Awards judge who spent twenty years working in the music industry in London. Sharing my house with a gorgeous cockapoo called Harry who has taken over completely.
I love sharing my favourite books with friends - nearly always spoiler-free as I hate reading a synopsis of the whole book in other reviews.
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