Jane Austen's books have inspired innumerable continuations and sequels, but the Brontë sisters' novels have fewer retellings. In Solsbury Hill, Susan M. Wyler takes the dark love story of Wuthering Heights and updates it into a contemporary romance.
Life has been straightforward for Eleanor Abbott. She's a successful clothing designer living in Manhattan, and is sort-of engaged to her childhood sweetheart, Miles. But then Eleanor catches Miles cheating and gets a call from her nearly forgotten Aunt Alice, who is dying in Yorkshire. Distraught by Miles's perfidy, Eleanor heads to Trent Hall, her family's ancestral English home, and is quickly absorbed by its isolated, windswept allure.
Eleanor discovers secrets about her family--including rumors that Trent Hall inspired Emily Brontë's beloved novel and that she herself is descended from Emily. She also discovers surprising insights about herself, including an attraction to Mead, her aunt's adopted son. Aunt Alice's dying days remind Eleanor of her own mother's death, sending her on a voyage of reminiscence and self-discovery.
Written in a romantic, spare style, Wyler's novel clearly harks back to its inspiration: Eleanor sleeps in a bedroom within a bedroom, and the dark-haired, inscrutable Mead is actually named Meadowscarp (a synonym for Heathcliff). Solsbury Hill doesn't have the same gothic gravitas as Wuthering Heights, but with its lonely moors, ghostly apparitions and conflicted heroine, Solsbury Hill's literary roots are strong. Wyler's more happily romantic take on the tragic story makes for an enjoying and approachable read. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm