Category: Bella Ellis

About The Book

The Brontë sisters’ first poetry collection has just been published, potentially marking an end to their careers as amateur detectors, when Anne receives a letter from her friend Lydia Robinson.

Lydia has eloped with a young actor, Harry Roxby, and following her disinheritance, the couple been living in poverty in London. Harry has become embroiled with a criminal gang and is in terrible danger after allegedly losing something very valuable that he was meant to deliver to their leader. The desperate and heavily pregnant Lydia has a week to return what her husband supposedly stole, or he will be killed. She knows there are few people who she can turn to in this time of need, but the sisters agree to help Lydia, beginning a race against time to save Harry’s life.

In doing so, our intrepid sisters come face to face with a terrifying adversary whom even the toughest of the slum-dwellers are afraid of…The Red Monarch.

My Review

With thanks to the publisher for the copy received. I read a lot of historical crime fiction, some of which contain created characters for the novel combined with those from real life whose actions during their life form part of a storyline. However, this is the only series I have read where real life characters are shown in a totally different way to their true personalities. I love reading about the Brontë family’s roles as detecters rather than authors. I also got a lot of enjoyment by seeing at least one character from the Brontë novels and another from their personal lives having a role here.

In this novel the siblings have left their beloved Yorkshire and travelled to London to rescue a friend who is in trouble. They have gone without telling their father where they are going, armed with one of his pistols and are determined to help their friend Lydia, daughter of the woman who has rejected Bramwell Brontë’s advances. He hopes that her mother will change her mind when she hears about his bravery, his sisters just want to help Lydia and her husband whose life has been threatened.

I love this series, the Brontë family is one I know little about and I have never read the novels. I always feel a degree of sadness because of them all dying young within a short time but these books are very entertaining and there is only a brief glimpse of loneliness at the beginning. I love their bravery, their attitudes towards those who try and deter them from their work and their support towards the ones who need it. This novel does feature Bramwell more but most of the focus is on the three sisters.

The hardship, poverty and theatre life are shown brilliantly. The description of the rookery in St Giles is just how I’ve always imagined life to be for many in an over populated London at this time and the description of wild animals used as entertainment was one I had never considered and left me with a sense of outrage and heartbreak. 

The Red Monarch is a fantastic addition to the series, I can’t wait to see what adventures they will face next. 

About The Book

It’s Christmas 1845 and Haworth is in the grip of a freezing winter. 

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë are rather losing interest in detecting until they hear of a shocking discovery: the bones of a child have been found interred within the walls of a local house, Top Withens Hall, home to the scandalous and brutish Bradshaw family. 

When the sisters set off to find out more, they are confronted with an increasingly complex and sinister case, which leads them into the dark world of orphanages, and onto the trail of other lost, and likely murdered children. After another local boy goes missing, Charlotte, Emily and Anne vow to find him before it’s too late. 

But in order to do so, they must face their most despicable and wicked adversary yet – one that would not hesitate to cause them the gravest of harm . . .

My Review

With thanks to the publisher for the copy received. How did I not know there was a Brontë Mystery series? Before I got a few chapters in I was fascinated by the idea, the setting and all of the characters. Despite not reading the first book in the series I had no problem getting to appreciate any of them. It didn’t even matter that my knowledge of the Brontë family is slim. I am only aware of who wrote which book and how young they were when they died. 

It is one of those few novels that contain everything I enjoy in fiction. A mystery, a touch of the gothic, historical facts and likeable characters. I did feel a touch of sadness because I know how and when they died and the opening chapter is very poignant. I wanted to know how many similarities the Brontë family had in this novel had to the real life family, in particular the relationship that they had with Tabby, if she existed, and the self destructive attitude of Branwell. 

Whilst you have to suspend belief that the Brontë sisters were a team of detectives what this novel does show extremely well is portray the life at the time. The struggle to keep warm,the harsh life in the orphanages, the customs and superstitions, the feeling of horror at crossing the border into Lancashire and the attitudes towards the Irish. 

This book was just what I needed after a slight reading slump.