I spent a fabulous weekend with my friend Maggie in Haworth, ages ago now, and stayed in the pub overlooking the graveyard, as yer do. And stormed across the moors, and imagined Heathcliff.
Ill Will, The Untold Story of Heathcliff by Michael Stewart is worth a read if you like gothic fiction. Stewart explores the untold story of this anti-hero, who does brooding like no-one else. Stewart captures the tone of Emily Bronte’s novel, which was so reflective of the bleak moor itself. Heathcliff has left Wuthering Heights, and travels across the moors to Liverpool in search of his past. He finds time time to save Emily, the less than ladylike daughter of a highwayman. Together they lie and steal, and cheat before Heathcliff is finally in a position to return to Wuthering Heights. I always felt that Heathcliff was understandable, he’d been dealt an outrageous hand. This is interesting. Well worth reading.
Ill will by Michael Steward. pub HQ hb.£12.99 ebook and audio.
Her Mother’s Secret by Rosanna Ley.
Yet again a novel which is partly set on the Cornish coast but not for long, for Colette heads to her home in Southern Brittany when her mother’s health begins to fail. Once there Colette’s ghosts of the past reveal themselves – here it comes, the secret. Aaah. It is one she is determined to unravel at any cost. The sun is out, the tone lighter. Not a Heathcliff – lighter and feel good.
Pub. Quercus. pb. £7.99
Workhouse Angel by Holly Green
A saga which takes Angelina from the Workhouse to an adoptive family who are not the benevolent guardians one might wish for. Then hope spring eternal when Angelina hears of a man who visited the workhouse looking for his daughter. So perhaps Angelina isn’t an orphan after all.
This is the second in the Brownlee Workhouse series.
pub Ebury Press £5.99.
I have lost my Way by Gayle Forman
This is told over the course of a day from three different perspectives. I love this sort of book. It’s one I give my groups often, because it helps them imagine themselves deep into several personnas.
Around the time that Freya loses her voice while recording her debut album, Harun is making plans to run away from home to find the boy he loves, and Nathaniel is arriving in New York City after a tragedy leaves him isolated.
The three of them reveal the parts of them past when they collide in Central Park, and then find their way back to who they’re supposed to be.
Lovely jubbly. Great jacket, good premise. Give it a go.
pub Simon and Schuster UK pb £7.99