Nelly Dean

See my full review at The Emerald City Book Review. Even though I very much enjoyed Nelly's story as a novel in itself, I didn't find it quite worked as a convincing extension of Wuthering Heights, which remains an astonishing singularity in fiction. At the same time, I don't think it would work as a standalone either – readers need to at least be very familiar with the plot of the earlier novel, or they will be baffled by certain references. The drawback of that is that readers who are looking for a repeat of the passion and drama of Wuthering Heights will not find it here, and might be disappointed.

If you can accept it on its own terms, though, you might be absorbed by this version of Nelly's story as I was. The characters touched my heart, the story drew me in, and the language was unobtrusively artful. I'm very much looking forward to whatever Alison Case writes next, and I hope it's going to be a true original this time. She clearly has much to offer.