The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis

Evening Bookwyrms,

Like most hardcore bibliophiles I grew up devouring the 'classics'. Pride & Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights (my personal favourite), Frankenstein.

So, unsurprisingly, I have grown into an adult with a deep love of the uncanny, the macabre, the period piece, the surreal, the gothic, the antihero and the wild willed woman.

That's why when I saw the blurb for The Vanished Bride I knew I needed to read it and as quickly as possible.

Here is the description that caught my attention:

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Yorkshire, 1845

A young woman has gone missing from her home, Chester Grange, leaving no trace, save a large pool of blood in her bedroom and a slew of dark rumours about her marriage. A few miles away across the moors, the daughters of a humble parson, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë are horrified, yet intrigued.

Desperate to find out more, the sisters visit Chester Grange, where they notice several unsettling details about the crime scene: not least the absence of an investigation. Together, the young women realise that their resourcefulness, energy and boundless imaginations could help solve the mystery - and that if they don't attempt to find out what happened to Elizabeth Chester, no one else will.

The path to the truth is not an easy one, especially in a society which believes a woman's place to be in the home, not wandering the countryside looking for clues. But nothing will stop the sisters from discovering what happened to the vanished bride, even as they find their own lives are in great peril...
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Therefore, as you can imagine, I was suitably thrilled when Hodder & Stoughton, via NetGalley, granted me an E-Arc of The Vanished Bride in exchange for a review  - which I am more than happy to share here.

Firstly can we take a moment to address the amazing pen name the author uses - Bella Ellis! A proper homage to the forbiddle and inspirational Brontë sisters that are the inspiration and focus of the book.

It is apparent from the very start of The Vanished Bride that Ellis has a passion and deep knowledge of the Brontë family, their lives, their scandals and their voices. And this passion gives way to a truly captivating story following, and told to us by, Charlotte, Emily and Anne.

What Ellis has done is reanimate the three Brontë sisters by giving them their own adventure beyond and outside of their writings. She has expertly woven fact into the fiction to such a masterful level that at some points in the story I forgot that this wasn't the sisters telling me their real life 'detecting' (mis)adventures.

And that is wonderfully refreshing story telling.

The Vanished Bride is told from all three sisters perspectives. Multiple POV is a writing style that I relish as I think a story is much more richly told when many voices are telling it. And Ellis gives each women her own voice. Her own identity forged with realism.

Charlotte is empathetic and compassionate.

Anne is gentle and devoted.

Emily is bold and fearless.

And Emily always was my favourite sister.

And Ellis does her proud.

In fact she does them all proud. Really showcasing their almost brazen spirits through their imagined murder mystery solving antics.

In The Vanished Bride Ellis gives us a murder mystery that features the otherworldly and uncanny: themes that I grew up loving. We have a Heathcliffian antihero, a gothic mansion in Chester Grange and many, many strong willed, determined, fierce women (not unlike Catherine Earnshaw - if a little tamer) who are not afraid to rail against the constructs of their society.

This book really did give me everything I wanted:

1. Strong female leads

2. Lush descriptive passages (chapter 19 is a particularly beautiful and haunting example of this and possibly my favourite chapter in the whole book!)

3. Witty dialogue

4. Red herrings and twisty plot turns

5. And all set to the backdrop of the Yorkshire  Moors (complete with lashing rain and howling winds)

I couldn't work out the ending until it was upon me and that is something special. Being swallowed up by the story and being along for the ride, not knowing the destination until you arrive.

When I finished this book I felt the beginnings of an epic book hangover coming on and so I took to the web to do some digging. The Vanished Bride is subtitled as The Brontë Mysteries - leading me to hopefully believe that there may be more stories to come!

Mainly The Vanished Bride brought back all the things I miss about period pieces.

I would solidly recommend this book to anyone even if historical fiction isn't your jam because I can attest that this book is more than just bonnets and petticoats!

Give it a go.

I'm giving The Vanished Bride five stars - easily, and can honestly say this is now one of my top three books of 2019 (it only took me two days to read it all - I couldn't put it down) and I think that Charlotte, Emily and Anne would be thrilled and pleased with this tale of their imagined lives.

The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis is available for pre-order in all the normal places (I've included a link for amazon below) and will be released in hardback on 7th November 2019 and paperback on the 14th May 2020.

The Vanished Bride: The Brontë Mysteries https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1529388988/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_s2QHDb0QK9365

Thanks again to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for giving me this opportunity.

Bye for now and remember to keep on reading,

Lottie