Emily's Secret: A Writer...a Love Story...a Curse...a Diary...a Secret...

Bravo to Jill for writing this alternate history of Emily Jane's life. A lot of Bronte purists seem hostile to any attempt at fictionalized literary revisionism, but to me, as long as the references to Emily etc. are respectful, the whole subject is fair game. I am in the process of completing an Alternate Emily Bronte novel myself at this time, which is why I was drawn to Jill's book. The idea that Emily was pregnant when she died has been expounded before, such as in James Tully's The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte, but the idea of contemporary blood relations to her alleged gypsy lover, is a relatively new twist. As far as Emily's imagination goes, I think Emily was just one of those people who knew that she had brought many things into this life with her. The fact that she and her sisters could write about military campaigns from a male perspective, as in the Gondal/Angria sagas are further indications of the ability to project ideas that do not come from one's own experience. Apparently Jill had a psychic, if not past life experience, prior to writing Emily's Secret, so she is obviously drawing on more than historical data in this interesting novel. I would also recommend her excellent novel My Lady Caroline, which is about Lady Caroline Lamb and Lord Byron.

The thought that Emily Bronte might have actually experienced some of the passion she wrote about in Wuthering Heights is intriguing. I enjoyed the romance between Alex and Selena and the breaking of the "gypsy curse". My only criticism would be the characterization of Alex's ex-girlfriend who I thought was too one-dimensional in her jealousy of Alex. Since she was supposed to be a Bronte scholar, I thought her reaction to the discovery of Emily's letter wasn't what I would have expected. I also thought that Alex's reaction to Selena's subsequent destruction of the letter was a bit too understanding.