Romancing Miss Bronte

Lately when people have been asking for recommendations, I've been telling them to read Romancing Miss Bronte. I love this book for so many reasons, mostly because I feel a kinship to Charlotte. What a lovely human being she was. So since I have not posted a book review in quite some time, I thought perhaps I would post an old one, one I wrote before I started this blog, and one that I love! Happy reading!

Romancing Miss Bronte by Juliet Gael

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A long admirer of Charlotte Bronte, and all the Bronte authors, I picked up this book at the library purely out of curiosity. It left me in tears. Years ago, when I was thirteen or fourteen, my mother insisted over and over that I read Jane Eyre. I kept trying, but I just couldn't get past the first 100 pages. I couldn't see how it would improve. It felt depressing and morose. Finally, when I was fifteen, I committed to it. I don't think any novel has had a greater impact on me since. I fell in love with Jane and with Mr. Rochester. I cried when the could no longer be together. It was the first classical "adult" novel I had read. My mother was right. And I've never quite gotten over it. It was, after all, my first love.

This book in some ways was much the same. Charlotte's life seemed so provincial, ordinary and much of the time, morose and sad. So I wasn't sure I wanted to know. I wondered if anything happy and good, beyond the publication and vast success of her novels, would happen to her. But it did. For a brief moment, Charlotte experienced all the happiness and all the goodness her life deserved. She was a noble, good woman. She was extremely intelligent. She formed deep and lasting friendships with a broad array of people.

Although the book is fiction, at first I thought it read a little too much like a biography. Now I appreciate the way the author wrote the story to so closely mirror Charlotte's real life. Because of that, I got a glimpse of an extraordinary woman. I was extremely happy to find her married to a man worthy of her. While at first she didn't see it, she came discover what a truly great man he was. He was of constant service to others and to her. All the while she had been looking for some exotic Mr. Rochester when what she really wanted had been in front of her for eight years. I think what I loved best was watching Charlotte finally fall in love with Arthur Nicholls, the constant curate who had served her father's parish so well. My hat goes off to Juliet Gael. What a beautiful story of a very beautiful woman's life.


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