The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte

By Syrie James

"I have written about the joys of love. I have, in my secret heart, long dreamt of an intimate connection with a man; every Jane, I believe, deserves her Rochester."

Though poor, plain, and unconnected, Charlotte Bronte possesses a deeply passionate side which she reveals only in her writings—creating Jane Eyre and other novels that stand among literature's most beloved works. Living a secluded life in the wilds of Yorkshire with her sisters Emily and Anne, their drug-addicted brother, and an eccentric father who is going blind, Charlotte Bronte dreams of a real love story as fiery as the ones she creates.

But it is in the pages of her diary where Charlotte exposes her deepest feelings and desires—and the truth about her life, its triumphs and shattering disappointments, her family, the inspiration behind her work, her scandalous secret passion for the man she can never have . . . and her intense, dramatic relationship with the man she comes to love, the enigmatic Arthur Bell Nicholls.

"Who is this man who has dared to ask for my hand? Why is my father so dead set against him? Why are half the residents of Haworth determined to lynch him—or shoot him?"

From Syrie James, the acclaimed, bestselling author of The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen, comes a powerfully compelling, intensely researched literary feat that blends historical fact and fiction to explore the passionate heart and unquiet soul of Charlotte Bronte. It is Charlotte's story, just as she might have written it herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jun 30, 2009
• ISBN: 9780061891779

Syrie James

Syrie James is the USA Today and Amazon bestselling author of thirteen novels including the critically acclaimed The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen; Jane Austen's First Love; Forbidden; Dracula, My Love; The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë; Nocturne; Runaway Heiress; Summer of Scandal; Duke Darcy's Castle; Floating on Air; Two Week Deal; and the international bestseller The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen. An admitted Anglophile, Syrie loves all things British and 19th century. Her novels have hit many Best of the Year lists, won the Audie Romance Award, and been designated as Library Journal Editor’s Picks and the Women's National Book Association’s Great Group Read. Syrie lives in Los Angeles and is a member of JASNA, the Historical Novel Society, and the Writer's Guild of America.  Visit Syrie at www.syriejames.com.

Reviews for The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte

[princess0starr · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Picked this up in the advance copy pile at work, as the title looked interesting, and I felt like I needed to get into more historical literature.

The Secret Diaries... covers a good bit of Charlotte Bronte's life- specifically, her relationship with her husband, Arthur Nicholls and how they met and fell in love. This also includes the years she spent publishing with her sisters.

I'll be honest, the narrative doesn't pick up until Anne, Charlotte and Emily decide to start writing and publishing their work. The first ten or so chapters cover Charlotte's childhood and education, and her first impression of Mr. Nicholls, who has arrived as her father's curate. However, after the sisters Bronte (or siblings Bell, as it were), begin their writing career, it really picked up for me.

However, once Mr. Nicholls and Charlotte begin returning the other's affections, every other character in the book- who have been highly supportive of Mr. Nicholls- does a 180 and starts accusing him of wanting Charlotte for her fame and fortune. I was also saddened to see James appropriate Jane Eyre's famous declaration; it made the lead-up of events seem cheapened and just a nod to Bronte fans. On the other hand, the reading group copy does include several published poems by the Bronte family, which does add to the story, seeing as the poems are discussed in great detail.

Overall, if you enjoy anything by the Brontes- or historical fiction/interpretation- this is for you.

[amanaceerdh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

lovely and charming book! i liked it more than the jane austen one. after i read it I was completely obsessed with the bronte sisters and wanted to learn everything i could about them!

[redhope_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book as biographical fiction. I read it hot on the heels of Charles and Emma - both deal with illness and untimely death within families in Victorian England. It would seem that illness and disease were rampant even among more affluent folks. I think this book certainly serves as a springboard to the fiction the Bronte sisters wrote.

[elizabethpotter_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book about the Brontës is not one of the better novels about them. My biggest problem was that the author felt she had to make so much of the happenings in Charlotte's novels part of her life. Now I realize that Villette was based on her time in Belgium and the Rochester was based somewhat on Professor Heger. However James copies the dream that Jane had before the wedding and gives it to Charlotte. James lifts dialogue from the Garden scene and the scene after the wedding when dealing with Charlotte's memories of Heger. Some of the work comes from imagination. Also a person doesn't remember much dialogue from life word for word. That is not what makes genius. I don't think Brontë could do that either. This really bothered me. I have not read Shirley or Villette often enough to see similar references, but they are probably there. Another issue that I can't back up were the biographical mistakes. James had Charlotte say that she burned to write novels. In fact I have always understood that she really wanted to be a poet like the romantics. However, I have never read a letter that stated that. So maybe I can accept what James says on that score. If these two issues do not bother you. Then you might enjoy it, but otherwise stay away.

[bbellthom · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book made me want to read all the Bronte sisters books. I have started with Jane Eyre and so far I am finding it wonderful. This book gave you a real sense of the time period in which the Bronte's grew up. What a sad short life they all had.

[emperatrix_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I selected Syrie James's The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë as my third reading selection for the All About the Brontes Challenge. I was intrigued by the premise behind the novel and found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable read.What if Charlotte Brontë had recorded her feelings, accomplishments, and disappointments in a diary? How much more would we know about the author of Jane Eyre? And what would we learn about her relationship with Arthur Bell Nicholls? James imagines the answers to these questions in her carefully researched novel and the result is a clever and believable narrative that brings a fresh perspective to the story of Charlotte Brontë.Laura, creator of the Brontë challenge, recently noted the similarity between Charlotte's relationship with Mr. Nicholls, as portrayed by James, and that between Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy. I noticed the connection as well and was amused by the possibility of Charlotte and Mr. Nicholls experiencing the sort of pride and prejudice that marked Lizzie and Darcy's relationship, particularly in light of Charlotte's views on the lack of passion in Jane Austen's prim and proper love affairs.James's portrayal of the relationship between the Brontë siblings was very illuminating. I have read the Brontës, but I knew little about the circumstances surrounding their writing or the hardships that they experienced. Reading the novel has really sparked my interest in learning more about this fascinating group of writers; I am now curious to read Mrs. Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Brontë and Charlotte's letters. I am also interested in reading the sisters' poems and Charlotte's unfinished manuscript, Emma (perhaps I'll give Clare Boylan's Emma Brown a try).I am glad that I chose to read this one after reading the Brontës' novels, particularly Charlotte Brontë's Shirley. James weaved so many incidents from the novels into the story to show how Charlotte and her sisters borrowed from life to create their narratives that I gained a new understanding of the novels.Gricel @ things-she-read.org

[gofita · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely loved this book! Syrie James does a wonderful job of capturing Charlotte Bronte and her sisters and their lives together. I learned so many new things about the Brontes. I never knew that she married so late in life and fell in love so hard with Mr. Nicholls. Her life was filled with tragedy at the loss of her mother when very young and soon her two older sisters and later in life her only brother Branwell, and then Emily and Anne. I enjoyed learning how she gained inspiration for her novels, especially my all-time favorite of Jane Eyre. I am no looking forward to reading her other novel about Jane Austen!

[ames3473 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely loved this book! I felt as if Charlotte Bronte was actually telling this story. I feel like I know her now. I am going to make it a point to read all of her novels (other than Jane Eyre). What a sad short life she had. This is a book that stays with you after you've read it!

[whitreidtan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I still have my copy of Jane Eyre from when I was nine so I am easily the target audience for this fictionalized take on Charlotte Bronte's inner life. Yes, I fell in love with Jane and Rochester when I brought home a rather large mass market sized book fresh from the always enticing Scholastic Book Club flier. When I was a little older and had a bit of disposable income (ie an allowance plus birthday money), I promptly bought myself all of Bronte's books as well as Emily's Wuthering Heights and Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. And just as promptly, I read them all. So happily spending hours with imagined diaries that shed some light into the lives of these clergyman's daughters who lived such isolated and fairly constrained lives out beside the moors made perfect sense to me.Opening as Charlotte is debating whether or not to accept the marriage proposal of her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls, the diaries then proceed back in time to the day that Mr. Nicholls arrived at Haworth parsonage. Not much substantive is known about the years between Mr. Nicholls taking the curate's position and when he and Charlotte Bronte wed so James has a fairly blank canvas on which to weave her tale. The diaries span the writing and the publications of most of the major works by the sisters Bronte but this doesn't shut out the imagined intricate daily life of the family. Charlotte's feelings towards the shy Mr. Nicholls grow and change realistically throughout the eight years of the narrative. In addition to Charlotte's life, the reader is treated to both Anne and Emily's characters and to the sad waste of Branwell's life. All of the characters, as seen through Charlotte's eyes, come alive although occasionally Anne and Emily seem a bit interchangeable. The story is impeccably researched, the language authentic feeling, and James has imagined a story that most Bronte fans will enjoy thoroughly. In some ways, her tale of Charlotte's life almost seems like an undiscovered plot from one of Bronte's own works. And while she cannot possibly reproduce inner thoughts and feelings as they definitely were, she has done a wonderful job imagining the possibility. Although this is called a diary, it is not written in traditional diary format (not that I would have been put off by such a convention although I know other readers would). It is, of course, written as a first person narrative and has a confidential tone to it in many places but it is still a respectful and almost staid rendering of these momentous eight years. I enjoyed the book as a fictional peek into an author for whom I will always have a very special feeling and I suspect that even folks not familiar with the Bronte's work can appreciate this as an historical fiction.

[bearette24 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a meticulously researched account of Charlotte Bronte's life. The author even used certain terms from the 19th century to create more verisimilitude. She really brought Charlotte to life as an intelligent, feisty, passionate woman, and Charlotte's romance with her future husband, Arthur Nicholls, was also convincing. I liked also how the author showed the source of many scenes and Rochester himself from Jane Eyre.