Worlds of Ink and Shadow

Worlds of Ink and Shadow

Author: Lena Coakley

Genre: Historical/Fantasy

Grade: A-

Worlds of Ink and Shadow was the Owlcrate January Book of the month and I was very happy to receive it. It’s a fantasy story about four of the Bronte siblings; Charlotte, Emily, Anne and their brother Branwell. Charlotte and Branwell have a gift. They are able to cross over into their stories and bring them alive.

They’ve created a world of perfect and doomed heroines and charming dashing rogues. It’s been a while since I’ve read the Bronte books but even I could still see the basis for their novels in these stories. Emily is jealous, jealous, jealous but the real story is what happens when they try to stop crossing over and the price they pay for freedom.

I really enjoyed this one. It wraps up not just their writing, but real and devastating events in the siblings lives, their family, a little bit of myth and history of the Moors and their actual writing. I also liked how the author dealt with Charlotte’s interior discoveries of certain aspects of her writing and how that affected her as well. Strange to say but I could actual see something like this actually happening to the Bronte siblings. I also enjoyed the rather mad unwinding of the other world for most of the book.

At a certain point though its the other world that sort of spins everything out of control in both places and the fake world definitely starts to get a little too crazy for me. I also found Emily and her “romance” a hard to relate to. She definitely rang the spoiled and destructive sibling bell and while you definitely see what (and who) the romance is alluding to I didn’t think it was necessary.

Recommend: Yes. It’s a good little stand alone book but you’ll probably take more away from it if you like the Bronte siblings and are familiar with their writing.