If, like the author, you are a Brontë fan with a love of the gothic then The Diabolical Bones will thrill you. If you admire the Brontë’s works but prefer your mysteries to be more realistic, you may be overwhelmed at times by the melodrama and descriptions of pagan practices to banish evil.
These concerns are redeemed for the latter group of readers, as it turns out that the sisters are pursuing someone completely deranged and wicked, who has been using the folklore and superstition to manipulate the sisters and prey on the locals.
Like the Victorian novelists, the book reveals the social horrors of the day, from desperate child poverty to prejudice against Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine. The squabbles of the siblings are charming and witty and lift the mood. Their characters are well drawn with bossy Charlotte, logical and fearless Emily and intuitive and insightful Anne. They make a splendid team of sleuths.
It’s rollicking gothic fun and it is worth putting on your stout shoes and bonnet for an imaginative adventure across the midwinter moors. There will be more to come in the mystery series, written by author Rowan Coleman using her pseudonym inspired by Emily Brontë’s pen name Ellis Bell. (Catherine Turnbull)
However, beyond this, “Bridgerton” comes off as a shallow piece of fiction that outweighs itself with style, not substance, because so much of it is all about how a woman looks.
We have had Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, who also spoke about these, but gave their stories something solid for us to reflect upon long after we stopped turning the pages. (Gautaman Bhaskaran)
She was married to Inspector Morse actor Thaw until his death, also from oesophageal cancer, in 2002. [...]
Dame Sheila wrote movingly about her relationship with Thaw in the 2004 dual biography The Two Of Us, which reflected on the couple's 28-year marriage and his battles with alcoholism and depression.
Speaking after his death, the star revealed that she begged her husband not to die, pleading with him not to leave her.
The actress said the love they shared was so strong that it bordered on 'obsessive', and said that neither she nor John could ever imagine being apart from each other.
Dame Sheila made the admission to Radio Times magazine as she compared her and John's love to tragic lovers Cathy and Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights
She said: 'If you have ever known that obsessive love, which sometimes makes it difficult to be together but impossible to be apart, you can identify with the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff.' (Bhvishya Patel)
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