Charlotte Brontë, who dazzled the world with some of literature’s most vital and richly-drawn characters, spent her brief but extraordinary life in search of love. She eventually found it with Arthur Bell, a reserved yet passionate Irishman. After marrying, the pair honeymooned in Ireland – a glimmer of happiness in a life shadowed by tragedy.
That moment of joy was destined to be short-lived however, as Brontë died just nine months into their marriage. Her genius, and the aura of mystery surrounding her, meant she’d been mythologised even within her own lifetime – a process which only intensified after her death. Observed through the eyes of Mary Nicholls – who encountered Charlotte on that fateful journey to Ireland, and who went on to wed her widower Arthur – Charlotte is a story of three lives irrevocably intertwined. Bound by passion and obsession, friendship and loss, loyalty and deception – this a story of Brontë’s short but pivotal time in Ireland as never before told.
Martina Devlin’s enthralling new novel Charlotte weaves back and forth through Charlotte’s life, reflecting on the myths built around her by those who knew her, those who thought they knew her, and those who longed to know her. Above all, this is a story of fiction: who creates it, who lives it, who owns it.
PRAISE FOR EDITH
‘Edith Somerville’s world is upended – her writing partner is gone; her safety, family home, and lifestyle are threatened by brewing civil war; and even her creativity is wavering. But Edith’s eponymous heroine is smart and sanguine, and she finds safety and comfort in esoteric practices as well as the arms of friends. This is a pacy novel of menace, intrigue, and nostalgia that examines the butting cultures of Independence Ireland with all the forensic joy in politics and language that readers expect from the wonderful Martina Devlin.’ Nuala O’Connor, author of NORA: A Love Story of Nora Barnacle and James Joyce
‘Edith is an engrossing and sensitive portrait of the writer Edith Somerville during the War of Independence when her writing partner Violet Ross is dead and her own career as a writer not flourishing. It is a portrait of a sensitive, solitary figure in a time of turmoil, of a woman striking out as an artist in a time when there were many barriers.’ Colm Tóibín, author of The Magician, and Laureate for Irish Fiction
‘Only a novelist as gifted as Martina Devlin could succeed in conjuring Edith’s complicated psyche, through moments of determination, exasperation and bewilderment, as the world transforms around her. Devlin’s bright imagination and keen ear for speech bring this book to life, vividly depicting a complex time, and a complex inner life.’ Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat
