Bronte's Mistress

June 8, 2020
Austin imagines in her languid debut the affair alleged to have occurred in the 1840s between tutor Branwell Brontë, brother of the famous English authors, and Lydia Robinson, the wife of his employer. Lydia, the 43-year-old mistress of Thorp Green Hall in Yorkshire, is grieving the recent deaths of her mother and her youngest daughter, Georgiana, while her husband, Edmund, pays little attention to her. Branwell, 25, an alcoholic with artistic ambitions hired to teach the Robinsons’ only son, soon sparks Lydia’s lust. Lydia takes risks by showing up at Branwell’s lodgings after a fight with her husband, inviting him to take tea and read Shakespeare to her, and allowing him to cut a lock of her hair. As this relationship intensifies, Lydia also manages her three daughters’ marriage prospects. After Lydia and Branwell consummate their relationship, Lydia worries whether a fulfilling sex life is worth committing adultery with someone who doesn’t share her social station. When her husband becomes seriously ill, she reconsiders the affair. While Austin paints a vivid picture of upper-class life and sprinkles in tantalizing tidbits about the Brontë sisters, her characters are not as finely drawn as others in the wide field of Brontë apocrypha. Still, this brooding romance will suffice for voracious readers of Victorian fiction. Agent: Danielle Egan-Miller, Browne & Miller Literary Associates.

August 1, 2020
Austin's debut expands on scholarly speculation that Branwell Bront� (brother to authors Anne, Charlotte, and Emily) had a passionate affair with Lydia Robinson, a married lady whose son Branwell tutored while Anne was governess to her daughters. Lydia is vain, aging, and longs for excitement. Branwell is young, passionate, and misguided. The story is told from Lydia's point of view: she grieves the recent losses of her mother and her youngest daughter, and is challenged by the management of her living children, interference from her mother-in-law, and her disinterested husband. Readers are privy to her flights of fancy as she imagines becoming involved with the much-younger Branwell and resists her urges, until she doesn't. They begin an affair, communicating through a servant and meeting in an abandoned cottage to indulge their attraction. The scandal that follows exacerbates Branwell's mental fragility and changes the lives of both families. Offer this to fans of Victorian literature, readers who like their historical fiction populated with real people, and those who don't require that their romances have happy endings.Women in Focus: The 19th in 2020(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)