Mysteries and Thrillers of 2021

 Shelf Awareness recommends Bella Ellis's The Diabolical Bones.

The Diabolical Bones

by Bella Ellis

In The Diabolical Bones, an atmospheric mystery set in 19th-century Yorkshire, the three Brontë sisters are drawn into the investigation of a set of bones. Charlotte, Emily and Anne usually spend a great deal of their time writing in the Haworth parsonage, hoping one day to be published--but they also like to turn their hand to detecting from time to time.

Isolated from the rest of the village of Haworth is a large house called Top Withens, where the Bradshaws live. The village gossips swear Clifton Bradshaw made a deal with the devil in his youth, so they are unsurprised to hear that he has found the skeleton of a child hidden in the chimney of his late wife's bedroom. The Brontë sisters are appalled, so they intervene, seeking an immediate Christian burial for the bones. They also hope to learn the child's identity, but Bradshaw insists that he has no idea how the bones got into the room, which has been locked for the 13 years since his wife's death. Determined to discover the truth, the sisters begin an investigation that grows ever more haunting.

Bella Ellis (The Vanished Bride) does a delightful job of weaving true incidents from the Brontës' lives into the case, and implying that Emily got the inspiration for Wuthering Heights from incidents at Top Withens. Cleverly written, The Diabolical Bones is a wonderful historical mystery, sure to appeal to mystery readers, history lovers and Brontë aficionados alike. --Jessica Howard, bookseller at Bookmans, Tucson, Ariz.

While PopSugar recommends The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins among the '22 Greatest Mystery and Thrillers of 2021'.

In The Guardian, Georgina Lawton discusses identity and heritage.

What constitutes your personal identity? It’s a question you might not have considered before. Perhaps it’s never bothered you. The topic of what makes us who we are, and our sense of self, has been discussed since the origins of western philosophy. The central theme in some of the world’s most famous novels, such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and JK Rowling’s Harry Potter is one of identity and the search for self. Yet defining who we are proves notoriously tricky.

The origins of Gothic romance, with particular interest in the Brontës, on a post on Masdearte's Fuera de Menú (Spain).