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ROMANCING MISS BRONTE By: Juliet Gael
Ballantine Books
May 2010
On Sale: April 27, 2010
Featuring: Charlotte Bronte; Arthur Bell Nichols
432 pages ISBN: 0345520041 EAN: 9780345520043 Hardcover
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Historical
In this astonishing novel, a brilliant mΓ©lange of fact and fiction, Juliet Gael skillfully and stylishly captures the passions, hopes, dreams, and sorrows of literatureβs most famous sistersβand imagines how love dramatically and most unexpectedly found Charlotte BrontΓ«.
During the two years that she studied in Brussels, Charlotte had a taste of lifeβs splendorsβtravel, literature, and art. Now, back home in the Yorkshire moors, duty-bound to a blind father and an alcoholic brother, an ambitious Charlotte refuses to sink into hopelessness. With her sisters, Emily and Anne, Charlotte conceives a plan to earn money and pursue a dream: The BrontΓ«s will publish. In childhood the BrontΓ« children created fantastical imaginary worlds; now the sisters craft novels quite unlike anything written before. Transforming her loneliness and personal sorrow into a triumph of literary art, Charlotte pens her 1847 masterpiece, Jane Eyre.
Charlotteβs novel becomes an overwhelming literary success, catapulting the shy and awkward young woman into the spotlight of Londonβs fashionable literary sceneβand into the arms of her new publisher, George Smith, an irresistibly handsome young man whose interest in his fiercely intelligent and spirited new author seems to go beyond professional duty. But just as life begins to hold new promise, unspeakable tragedy descends on the BrontΓ« household, throwing London and George into the background and leaving Charlotte to fear that the only romance she will ever find is at the tip of her pen. But another man waits in the BrontΓ«sβ Haworth parsonageβthe quiet but determined curate Arthur Nicholls. After secretly pining for Charlotte since he first came to work for her father, Arthur suddenly reveals his heart to her.
Romancing Miss BrontΓ« is a fascinating portrayal of an extraordinary woman whose life and work articulated our deepest human longing: to love and be loved in return.
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