June is rich and brilliant, the only candidate ever to get a perfect score in the Trials, and is destined for a glowing career in the military. MacColl works hard to connect the real-life Brontës’ books to an imagined source in a fictional adventure, blending quotes from Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights with her own historical fantasy.Įqual parts gothic melodrama and Nancy Drew derring-do.Ī gripping thriller in dystopic future Los Angeles.įifteen-year-olds June and Day live completely different lives in the glorious Republic. Sharing narrative responsibility, Emily and Charlotte are distinctive and well-drawn characters, though their depictions are somewhat complicated by the mixture of real biographic details, literary hagiography and modern free-spiritedness. Already familiar with death, the girls also get to experience love, albeit briefly. Despite their differences, the teenage sisters unite to solve the (much-belabored) mystery of a madwoman, a long-lost heir and unscrupulous Freemasons.

Both Charlotte and Emily enjoy writing-Charlotte writes fantasy bodice-rippers, while Emily tends toward the darker stuff-and find sudden inspiration in the strange occurrences in their little town of Haworth. Having lost their mother and several siblings at an early age, the remaining Brontë siblings deal with grief in their own ways: Prim Charlotte grudgingly shoulders responsibility for her family eccentric Emily runs wild on the moors reprobate brother Branwell drinks and falls into bad company.

Reimagined as detectives, the Brontë sisters kick-start their writing careers by solving a mystery in this detailed if dubiously grounded novel.

Always Emily by Michaela MacColl