I’ve been wanting to read Reay’s works for years, but never took the chance to pick one of her books up until recently, when I stumbled across a few of her works in our local library. The Brontë Plot was an interesting introduction to her writing, and though it wasn’t a favorite read, I could see that Reay is a masterful writer with a keen eye for detail and a love of old books.

There was a lot to love in this story. I particularly enjoyed the friendship element of the book, and I also appreciated the main theme of learning to keep a short account, admitting when we’ve done wrong, and living without regrets. I also enjoyed the journey the main character went on, as she reckoned with her past and worked toward a healthy future.

I did struggle with some aspects of the story—although it’s billed as somewhat Christian, that element felt particularly lacking to me. I also struggled with the romance side of the book to some extent—not because it was too detailed or anything, but because it felt somewhat unnecessary to the story. And the main character’s father…I wanted to throttle him!

Overall, this wasn’t a standout read for me. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and enjoyed the way old books were brought into the story (although at times I struggled to find the connection with the Brontës). I found the antique business fascinating, and the writing style itself was easy to follow. But overall, I wasn’t sad when I finished the book and was ready to dive into something more interesting when I finished the last page. I’m hoping to read other Reay books in the future, just to see what I think of her other works; even though this book fell flat for me, I’m sure some of her others will likely be good. Recommended, if you enjoy reading about books and booksellers, friendships spanning across different generations, or books with redemptive themes. ( )

I read this on the heels of the author's more recent book, The Printed Letter Bookshop. The quality of writing in her newer book is so much improved that I feel like I'm reading a completely different author. Honestly; that, and the fact that I'll read anything about England/Brontes/booksellers, kept me reading this really badly written book.

Apart from just a really convoluted jumbled mess of a storyline, and an author-created secretly schizophrenic main character, I found it really annoying that she mentions so many classics but doesn’t seem to know much about them. (It's not “Tenet”, but Tennant of Wildfell Hall; or that Tess of the d’Urbervilles is by Thomas Hardy; or that she’d have a rough time finding a “small squished copy” of Wives and Daughters since it’s over 700 pages long…) and her editors don’t know this either? Ascetic instead of aesthetic? Come on…

The dramatic (and really immature and whiny for Lucy) dialogue between her and James at lunch toward the end doesn’t work. Too much alluding to feelings and accusations that aren't explained. We need to get inside their heads more... or we could just turn the story into High School Musical and be done with it.

Meh. I'll probably read more from her but I'm not holding my breath on liking it... ( )

The full review can be found here:

https://nordie.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/book-review-the-bronte-plot-by-katherine...

Book about books, YA summer sync file program. Good story of values, romance, and of course books. Some of it takes place in London. ( )

This was a wonderful book. It was a beautiful story, amazing characters and every word had a meaning in it. I liked to see how everything started nicely and then everything went downhill, at least for Lucy, and then it started to get better and it was nice to see how she grew up and solved all her problems. I'm also a big fan of history and the classics so it was an amazing book in that perspective as well. All in all, this book was brilliant and a true page-turner ( )