Karen Perkins

I feel duty bound to read fiction set in my local Brontë Country and also needed an antidote to the recent 'biopic' about Emily, so when Karen Perkins' novel popped up on Instagram, I took a (£1.99) chance!

Recently divorced Verity Earnshaw returns to her father's roots in Haworth - from Leeds, ostensibly, but she comes across like a southerner! - to set up a bed and breakfast in a converted row of weavers' cottages on Main Street. Her two friends, Jayne and Lara and Lara's daughter Hannah, join her for the Christmas period and local builder Vikram and his team set about gutting the former restaurant to make Verity's dream a reality. There are rumours that the cottages are haunted by the 'Grey Lady' but Verity dismisses the troubled history of her new house - until strange glowing orbs are seen and Verity starts having vivid dreams about the Victorian history of Haworth - the dark satanic mills, poor sanitation and high mortality rate. She is lead through the past by a dark, brooding figure who could be the fictional Heathcliff - or a very real threat to Verity.

The story is oddly paced - a chick lit tourist guide to Haworth in the first half, with a few ghostly dreams thrown in, and then an all out Mexican soap opera for the final few chapters, complete with possession and a three month coma for Verity and her new boyfriend! I was just starting to like the characters and feel a little spooked by the ghostly experiences, especially the Grey Lady, when a dinner party goes disastrously wrong and I thought I'd accidentally skipped a few chapters. I wasn't sure why the ghost of Martha had chosen Verity either, apart from handy proximity - because Verity had very understandably wanted to hurt her ex at one point? As I say, very Mexican telenovela!

Melodrama aside, I enjoyed the stay in Haworth, with detailed research of the past, a likeable portrayal of Emily - no sex with the curate in a barn here - and poetic descriptions of the moors. The 'Yorkshire glossary' made me laugh, though - owt, nowt and mesen. Joseph might have needed subtitles in Wuthering Heights but I think most people can translate the modern Yorshire terms in this story!… (more)

Reading from Jennet's pov puts you right in those times and helps to see how quickly things get out of hand, how mob mentality and fear can lead people to do things they'd never do on their own. I loved Jennet... I couldn't connect with Emma, not did I feel her connection with Jennet... If the author didn't tell you, you'd never feel that one actually had any hold over the other (I'm trying so hard to explain and not to spoil it!). Jennet was a real character to me, and I was upset every time something happened to her. A good read, overall.… (more)