My Brother's Keeper
Ratings2
Average rating4.5
15
Ratings2
Average rating4.5
2024 LOCUS AWARD FINALIST, BEST FANTASY NOVEL Howarth, 1846. In a parsonage at the edge of the moors, a widowed rector lives with his family: three daughters and their dissolute brother, Bramwell. Though the future will celebrate Charlotte, Emily and Anne, right now they are unknown, their genius concealed. In just a few short years they will all be dead, and it will be middle sister Emily's chance encounter with a grievously wounded man on the moor that sets them on the path to their doom. For there is an ancient pagan secret haunting the moors, a dark inheritance in the family bloodline and something terrible buried under an ogham-inscribed slab in the church. Not only are their lives at stake, but their very souls. My Brother's Keeper is an atmospheric gothic novel that mixes diabolical hatred and vengeance with the supreme power of love to conjure dark magic from the tragic fate of the Brontë sisters.
Reviews with the most likes.
Quite a departure, but pleasantly so!
I don't have the best of memories for specifics, but the story structure and writing seem different from Powers' usual.
Such a wonderful idea for a story, and told expertly. My only knowledge of the Brontes was from a Monty Python gag about the semaphore version of Wuthering Heights, but now I'm interested in reading their works.
It's always interested seeing what Powers will make of a literary biography, and I enjoyed this spin on the life of the Brontes. Emily takes centre stage, but this is about Bramwell too. Plenty of gothic elements including werewolves, ghosts, curses and a cult. It was atmospheric and I thought it was decently written but didn't particularly have anything that new to say about the family, especially the petulant Bramwell. Emily was far more interestingly written as a character.
