The two young women are realistically balanced between sounding convincingly like girls who were raised in the nineteenth century and sounding like the rebels they would eventually become, defying the society they lived in by writing and publishing books. Then there's the wild and reckless Emily who would rather have midnight adventures on the moors than play by the rules laid out for her. She portrays Charlotte as the more conservative, more grounded but ultimately more romantic sister that she was, trying to keep the peace in a household full of vibrant personalities. MacColl has evidently done a lot of background reading and, in my opinion, she gets the girls' personalities just right. It focuses mainly on the relationship between Charlotte and Emily - one which I've always personally been fascinated by - and throws an interesting mystery into their lives which will influence their future work more than they can possibly know. But it's actually a well-researched piece of historical fiction that imagines life within the Bronte household back in the early days when the girls were experimenting with writing their own fairy tales. I didn't really expect this to be any good. No matter how cringy that retelling sounds or how dodgy that movie trailer looks, I have to read/see/consume it. I have a serious problem when it comes to the Brontes - I can't resist them. And see if you can't understand why a place like that might inspire the daughters of a pastor to break free from the constraints placed upon them by society, time and their gender, and write some of the most influential and powerful novels ever written.Īlways Emily was a very pleasant surprise. See the cobbled side streets of York and the windy Yorkshire moors. But if you get the time, take a trip a few hours North of London and see the place where I grew up. If you haven't already but someday get a chance to visit the UK, you should visit London and see all the traditional sights it has to offer: Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, the British Museum, Hyde Park, Harrods, the Tate Modern, Big Ben, Westminster and St Paul's. In a place that has had a huge impact on who I am and that I continue to think of with love and nostalgia.

But I grew up in a very different kind of setting. And I love how everything you could possibly want is practically on your doorstep. These days, I live some thirty minutes outside of central London and I love the city. “I have dreamt read in my life, dreams books that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.”

Always emily by michaela maccoll