cover image Emily's Secret: A Writer...a Love Story...a Curse...a Diary...a Secret...

Emily's Secret: A Writer...a Love Story...a Curse...a Diary...a Secret...

Jill Jones. St. Martin's Press, $4.99 (355pp) ISBN 978-0-312-95576-2

Academics may not normally make the most compelling protagonists of romance fiction. But when a professor has devoted his career to the study of Emily Bronte (one of the ur-romance novelists, after all), his love life is bound to be a little more interesting than usual, particularly when his story becomes entangled with Emily's own. American prof Alex Hightower journeys to Yorkshire in the hope of proving his theory that Emily did not die a natural death but rather committed suicide after a passionate secret love affair. Alex is branded a fool by most of his colleagues, most bitingly by his ex-lover and current nemesis Maggie Flynn, an Oxford don and femme fatale of epic proportions. But in the paintings of gypsy artist Selina Wood, Alex begins to uncover proof that his suspicions may be correct. Prickly, elusive and beautiful, Selina soon beguiles Alex almost as much as Emily herself, and the history of Emily's secret romance becomes entwined with that of Alex and Selina. The passion portrayed in Jones's first novel pales in comparison to Bronte's Wuthering Heights, but watching Alex's life take on the Gothic overtones of Bronte's novel is fun, and the scholarly squabbles between Alex and Maggie make for an entertaining subplot. (Sept.)