THE SECRET DIARIES OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË - Syrie James
Avon
ISBN: 978-0-06-164837-3
July 2009
Historical Fiction

Yorkshire, England - 1845 to 1857

Living with her father, two sisters, and an alcoholic brother, Charlotte Brontë relates in her diary her daily life as a parson's daughter in a small Yorkshire village. Charlotte and her sisters, Anne and Emily, are spinsters. If their father hands over his duties due to deteriorating eyesight, they will all lose not only his income, but also their home in the parsonage. The only opportunities for women are marriage, teaching in a school, or governessing. Two of the choices are objectionable to them, and they had tried to open their own school, but were unsuccessful. To prevent the loss of their home, their father hires Irishman Arthur Bell Nicholls to act as the parish curate and help him with his duties. Within a short time, Mr. Nicholls deeply offends Charlotte, making it impossible for her to like him. To try to secure their future, the three sisters attempt to have their poetry and fiction published using nom de plumes. While they reach their goal, only Charlotte's Jane Eyre captures the public's attention, and their income from their books is insufficient to support the family.

Written very much in the style of the heroine's novels, THE SECRET DIARIES OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË covers the tumultuous last years of Charlotte's life. For a fictionalized account of a historical person, the story is well researched and closely follows the events of Charlotte's life, subtly interweaving her personalized view of the situations. I found the diary format of the story hard to get into, but the emotional events soon captured my interest. Today's popular novels set in this era do little justice to the dangerous situation in which unmarried women found themselves, but this story does. All the nuances and problems of being a spinster in the nineteenth century seemed to have only challenged Charlotte. Her accomplishments are therefore even more notable. Her secret diary, as presented by author Syrie James, captures all the heartache and triumphs of the independent and creative spirit Charlotte Bronte must have been.

Robin Lee